00:00:00
since time began we found ways to settle our differences this town ain't big
00:00:04
enough for the both of us what you heard looks pretty darn spacious to me there ain't nothing but space but today
00:00:15
we don't shoot it out we bet it out right draw right jockey man those one shoots out the
00:00:25
gate bet it out with beta r18 bet responsibly serviceman Jay welcome to my podcast how
00:00:38
are you thank you very much for having me on M I'm uh I'm um absolutely honored
00:00:43
uh to have you here today um I'm fizzing to get into this I only got your book
00:00:48
serviceman Jay this morning so I'm I'm yet to have more than a flick through it
00:00:51
but I've listened to so many podcasts you've been on and um I'm I'm so
00:00:55
inspired by your story on my podcast I uh tend to focus a lot on um you know mental health and mental well-being and
00:01:02
I think for me that's part of the inspiring thing about your story just um the things that you've seen and done um
00:01:08
but just the work that you've done to be the person that you are now and unpack
00:01:11
everything you've been through at the back end of it it's inspirational awesome thank you yeah looking forward
00:01:16
to unraveling it all yeah so um as I said listen to a lot of podcasts um there's a word that you use quite often
00:01:23
um like CL or cling clicking off cling off what is that is that is that killing someone no no clacking off is is like uh
00:01:32
someone who's wearing a suicide vest and they have a you know they have a trigger
00:01:35
and they'll just you know detonate themselves basically like people clacking them off um and we encountered
00:01:40
a couple of those um on operations in Afghanistan which was kind of the norm over there to be honest uh as as bad as
00:01:48
it is but um yeah and when you're going up against people like that um you know
00:01:54
you have to make sure you're you know very careful and and not running to your
00:01:58
discs and uh yeah just looking out for your mates and uh making sure you're going to keep safe
00:02:04
all the way around because they'll basically draw you in and then um try and take as many as I can out um in the
00:02:10
explosion so yeah but just the the frequency that you use this word like it's just like
00:02:16
everyday like an everyday thing like it's it's alarming the things you've
00:02:20
seen man yeah there a number of operations so you know I guess early on we're doing long range Patrols in the
00:02:26
desert and I guess we'll go into that and then you know later on and the tours
00:02:29
we're doing um we're out in kabo in the city and that was more close quar to
00:02:33
battle so we we're up up close and personal so you have the New Zealand gallantry star which is um the second
00:02:39
highest military honor uh that's from um 2011 where where is it this is something
00:02:44
I ask all the Olympians that I have on the um sits in in a box in the shelf and it come probably comes out once a year
00:02:51
if that whatas on enac day a couple hours yeah and that's about it and it goes
00:02:57
back into the box but um I'm not too sure the olyp Olympians say but you know
00:03:01
for me the medal doesn't make the man or the woman um at the end of the day it
00:03:06
just represents and sort of shows people that understand what that metal looks like um that's an experience that you've
00:03:13
been through um and that's what medals represent we have been and you know where you're recognized for stuff like
00:03:18
you know gallantry yeah but when when you open up the door and you see it what what do you feel you feel immense Pride
00:03:25
um do you do you feel like yes sad that that chapter of your life would you seem
00:03:30
to love is it over or um I'm pretty indifferent um like I said it's it's
00:03:36
just it's just at the end of the day you know and I've said it before as you you
00:03:40
know in the number of the on the podcast there that medal is a representation of
00:03:45
a team effort you know um at the end of the day every single man and and that was there that that night um should have
00:03:54
been recognized um but it doesn't always work out that way because I don't
00:03:58
determine what that looks like I just tell people you know what they've done
00:04:01
and they they see how that lines up against the criteria so um yeah at the end of the day I hold that for for
00:04:07
everyone as a leader and um as I said before is that uh you know again it was an A Team you know that made me look
00:04:13
good as a leader one of those one of those uh situations and um yeah everyone had to part part to play the success of
00:04:20
that operation yes so that's the the gallantry Stars the second highest military on um behind the the Victoria
00:04:25
Cross um what's what what's the difference why didn't you get a Victoria
00:04:29
Cross I again I don't make those decisions um the it's whether or not you satisfy that
00:04:37
criteria I think with a Victoria Cross um you know there has to be you know 90% chance or higher that you've you could
00:04:44
have got killed in a particular action um it has to be a significant action whether it's something you know
00:04:50
offensively defensively or saving lives um and yeah there there's levels to the
00:04:56
game so I guess I satisfied that that level not the 90% sorry sorry j was 88% um so you got
00:05:05
that for the um the Intercontinental incident yeah which is the 29th of June 2011 um where there were 19 Taliban at
00:05:12
the Intercontinental 20 civilians killed um [ __ ] you must have been close to getting the Vic
00:05:18
cross like it's a hell of a story and you tell it so well and we'll get into
00:05:21
that but um it's um mate it's harrowing it's terrifying yeah there's a lot in
00:05:27
that and do you want me to get into it now no no no we'll get into pretty it
00:05:31
was pretty harrowing yeah it's um you know those those spectacular attacks uh
00:05:36
Believe It or Not were were pretty regular and um Regular enough to sort of go oh okay you know um it's another
00:05:44
spectacular attack um but you know there's always a huge loss of life and um it's always done at a you know point
00:05:51
in time um of their choosing so that's a surprise to everyone you know they don't
00:05:57
mind killing unarmed civilians you know which is you know just I don't I I'm not
00:06:02
too sure what that mindset is all about um and then you know at that point their
00:06:06
martys in their own eyes and um yeah they're willing to die for their cause so this photo that I've got here
00:06:14
um is is that from that day is that day that's us coming out yeah and as you can
00:06:19
see like um really we should have been masked up and we got a kick in the bum for that but um you know we we were just
00:06:26
coming around those Vehicles there and um all of a sudden you know the the all these the pepperazzi were there
00:06:32
basically and they just started snapping away on their cameras on Burst Mode when
00:06:36
we went in um you know they had an outer quarter that was about 400 m away from the hotel so we thought we had a bit of
00:06:42
clear clear ground but uh things changed very quickly you see that photo um obviously at the time it sucked for you
00:06:49
but what about now when you look at it um when I look at it now I think uh yeah I just look at a whole lot of um
00:06:58
stunned um you know tied individuals um and when I look at the the the look on the faces
00:07:05
um yeah I know why you know and um you know now that I'm looking at it a different perspective it's uh yeah very
00:07:12
interesting um particularly Steve you know he had um done a lot in there um he's the one that got shot on the side
00:07:20
of the and he had sh in his and around his legs and his arms and his back which you don't you don't see but um yeah and
00:07:29
uh yeah a couple other people who I know what their roles were and I can see on the looks of their faces um what they
00:07:34
had to go through as well so yeah very very interesting I mean at this point was it's still very procedural and um
00:07:40
you know the next part of the plan now was to get people to hospital um and yeah and we were supposed to go back to
00:07:48
camp but uh that didn't always go and how how different are you now to that person in the in the photo um yeah I
00:07:55
think night and day um and I guess we'll get into transition but of taken some
00:08:01
steps to really um delink myself from um that particular person not all of it because
00:08:10
some stuff does you know help you um in the civilian world and that and uh but a
00:08:17
lot of stuff needs to stay um compartmentalized in in in in that particular space are you you will get
00:08:23
into all that you you um you're sort of downplaying it like you you've done the
00:08:27
[ __ ] work like no one and and no one else can do it for you and I know there's some some books that um you
00:08:32
swear by that have had a big part but um I'm a I'm a reader myself and I know
00:08:36
that um you can get good information from a book but um a book can't change your
00:08:41
life you actually have to do the work yourself and you've done all that and I
00:08:44
think that's something you should be immensely proud of yeah thanks very much
00:08:46
yeah um just a couple of light ones before we get into your backstory um gaming like Call of Duty you you ever
00:08:54
you ever played that or not really no I mean I think uh way back way back where playing what is it mdal Gear Solid and
00:09:02
some of those older World War II games I can't remember what they were called but
00:09:05
I wasn't really much of a gamer um yeah any chance I got was uh skying to be
00:09:11
honest I started skying when I was 17 um at of kypr flat there where it when it was uh operating as a SC when was skying
00:09:19
Operation out there and then um yeah and I just didn't look back I'm still doing
00:09:23
it now um but um fun yeah the funny thing is I got into skydiving watching Point Break You Know The Point Break
00:09:31
that probably that probably brought a few people into the skydiving wood I saw that saw the movie got the Yellow Pages
00:09:37
found out where the nearest drop zone was called them on the landline you know cell phones back then called them on the
00:09:42
landline oh yeah I'll go down there and uh yeah pay for my first jump course and
00:09:46
uh yeah that's all she wrote I'm still hooked that's um it's probably lucky cuz
00:09:50
from from what I um from what I've learned about your story it's that you
00:09:53
were sort of at a Crossroads where you could have gone off the rails um at that point in your life before the military
00:09:58
um came along so you could have ended up becoming a sky diver from Point Break or
00:10:01
a bank robber I could have yeah yeah potentially yeah I know yeah it's crazy
00:10:06
just who you roll with and and I guess you know I would have taken it to the E degree uh regardless of which way way I
00:10:12
went so um again you know you don't know uh spiritually I guess you know there's
00:10:18
plans for me that went going into the darker side of the house so yeah crazy um and John key as prime minister you
00:10:24
were like his um his bodyguard or for a time yes I was his um personal protection officer for the trip going
00:10:31
into Iraq and um yeah the p is the guy that you kind of see on a shoulder so um yeah had a bit of a um uh got to get to
00:10:40
know the man um good man uh what you see is what you get as I've said before and
00:10:45
um yeah he good good to work with easy easy going and uh Willie AATA the the um the New Zealand with the VC were you you
00:10:53
you work together quite intensely were you s were you sort of his boss or um not really we were sort of rank coming
00:11:00
through um and that and um and yeah we're in the same Squadron so we' been
00:11:06
on operations together we on a couple of operations together did a lot of training together so yeah we knew each
00:11:10
other pretty well what's um yeah what's will the Willie apata that we don't see
00:11:16
like because whenever I see him it's on the TV um he's very softly spoken uh
00:11:20
very quiet very humble but you must have seen the The Savage side of him I guess
00:11:24
yeah yeah I mean the man's he's a man Mountain he's very strong you know um
00:11:28
he's uh yeah um he does he can do the work he's um yeah definitely a family
00:11:37
orientated individual um squared away um obviously he's demonstrated his courage
00:11:43
there um and that kind of thing but um yeah you'll drink any man under the table I know that you'll go for days if
00:11:48
you need to uh he's definitely demonstrated that but um yeah you'll know well he's in the room cuz he's got
00:11:54
quite a significant laugh um and he's always joking around um that kind of thing but uh you know the VC I'm sure uh
00:12:03
has changed him over the years you know um initially there was a bit of shocker capture if you like you know when he was
00:12:09
brought out in front of the media which is very difficult for any SAS Soldier to
00:12:14
do at that at that point point in time you know in his life um as as I'm sure
00:12:19
the uh you know the public would have seen and um but now I think he's really
00:12:23
grown into that that role um and how significant um that medal is for New Zealand
00:12:29
and you know I guess the work he's doing out there is um yeah is is is hitting
00:12:35
the mark with different people have have you in your old um what do you call it is it a team a platoon what are you
00:12:41
Squadron Squadron do you guys have like a WhatsApp group or are you still in touch you support each other yeah we got
00:12:46
a got a kind of a Communication channel that we we talk to each other in and that kind of thing um but you know I
00:12:53
guess it's the sad reality of life is that um you know we probably only really
00:12:57
get together at funerals um you know we try and we try and do it outside of that but you know the boys
00:13:04
will come from all four corners of the earth um when one of the boys have have passed away and um so it's interesting
00:13:12
with that cuz a number of guys have passed away since I've um uh left the service and even even when I was serving
00:13:20
and um I know initially um in the early days the boys were quite sad and was very heavily emotional um but nowadays
00:13:27
it's kind of a re Union and um it's a lot lighter and you know although we're
00:13:34
sad that the person's passed on that person has brought us all together again
00:13:37
and then we get together catch up have a few beers you know go out for dinner maybe you know hit it hit it quite hard
00:13:42
that night um if we feel like it but um yeah it's just uh yeah it's more of a um
00:13:49
enjoyable exciting experience to come down and say goodbye to one of my mates and and catch up with everyone you know
00:13:55
you're going to catch up with people you haven't seen them for a long time which
00:13:57
is a completely different mindset to be honest it's probably a better mindset to
00:14:01
have it at a funeral celebrating rather than you know really getting sad about it yeah celebrating someone's life how's
00:14:08
how's everyone everyone doing like yeah as I've mentioned a couple of times
00:14:11
already like you've done a lot of work and as a result of that you're thriving
00:14:14
but if you look at um by the way I'm I'm probably going to say or ask a lot of
00:14:18
dumb stuff because I've got no it's a world that I've got no no idea about
00:14:22
it's all I'm I suppose I'm basing basing this sort of theory or thought on as um
00:14:25
you the limited stuff I know about the uh you American troops and in the Vietnam War and a lot of people ended up
00:14:31
with like opad issues and mental health issues and um you detrimental effects for you and your old Squadron is it most
00:14:39
people thriving or doing okay yeah yeah mostly mostly not all um it's a different Journey for everyone of course
00:14:47
because we're all we're all you know been through different experiences in
00:14:51
life it's how we're brought up and and how we see view the world from our our
00:14:54
sort of corner of the room um but yeah most people are doing very very well um yeah but you know some people are still
00:15:04
struggling to I guess pull themselves away from um the culture essentially that's that's so strong you know and the
00:15:13
Brotherhood is so tight you know brother and Sisterhood to be honest um is so tight you know because only you guys
00:15:20
have been through that experience together that's quite significant that's
00:15:23
on the top of you know the culture that the Army instills into you and then that's on top of the culture that the
00:15:29
regimen instills within you which is stronger again you know accountabil very very high high expectations high
00:15:34
standards need to be met um and so all of that's is hard to pull away from I
00:15:38
mean you're given Blood Sweat and Tears and your whole self to the cause um and
00:15:43
now you're out in the world and um you know trying to figure things out in a in
00:15:49
a different way and and trying to be c a patient so yeah it hasn't always landed
00:15:53
with a lot of people but um in general I think the boys are pretty good you know
00:15:57
if someone's falling on high times or someone picks up on a conversation that
00:16:01
potentially happen with someone that may be um worth getting a bit of support around that person then then that's what
00:16:08
we'll do you know yeah that that Readjustment must be just unbelievably tough like unbelievably tough and does
00:16:13
does it bother you the sort of um lack of patriotism in New Zealand like I'm
00:16:16
thinking whenever I fly through America and you're waiting for a domestic flight
00:16:20
um there'll be a boarding call and if you're a serviceman yeah they're usually
00:16:23
in uniform and they let to board the plan first yeah yeah I think I think New Zealand culture I'm not too sure if want
00:16:29
to go that far into it you know and I I actually I take my hats off to the Americans because patriotism is
00:16:34
something they do very well but I think but I think in New Zealand culturally you know we're we're quite we're a
00:16:39
little bit different you know we don't we don't try and overplay things um you
00:16:42
know I'm not expecting you run to have a New Zealand flag outside their house and
00:16:45
that type of thing but um I think uh as I said in the past you know we definitely in terms of patriotism the
00:16:50
All Blacks are you know it and we definitely um idolize them you know and new zealanders in particular I'm not
00:16:58
speaking for everyone um but for the military yes but but not so much you know and um that's uh I mean I'm I'm
00:17:05
pretty indifferent about that you know everyone makes their own own mind up about it but um yeah we're doing some
00:17:10
pretty significant stuff out there and I guess this book reveals some of that yeah it must be nice to have that um
00:17:16
even though it goes against sort of you know everything that's ingrained with
00:17:18
you like about you know keeping your identity private and not speaking about the stuff um it must be nice to have the
00:17:24
opportunity to share some of the stuff you've done yeah I think so um and um yeah I guess talking about the
00:17:31
reason why I wrote the book you know a lot of people were saying to me hey you know um Jamie I think you've got a story
00:17:37
to tell and at the time you know I wasn't really ready to be listening to that um but I just kept hearing it
00:17:43
enough times that it was time to sort of um putting pen to paper but um as you probably already would have seen in some
00:17:49
of those podcasts it wasn't until you know a good friend of mine Steve esin who's you know on that photo there um
00:17:56
you know that that guy there was uh you know pretty pretty significant human being but uh he ended up dying in the
00:18:02
port Hill fires as a lead pilot um The Monsoon bucket wrapped around the tail rotor and he you know that was a one way
00:18:10
took it out and that was the only way he's going to die to uh something that
00:18:13
was outside of his control because he's he could control all other factors um
00:18:18
when I heard about it hit me like a brick um because in fact I dismissed it and thought no there's no way you know
00:18:26
and then and then it became a reality so yeah had his funeral went down to his um
00:18:32
uh house and saw his kids on the trampoline and um yeah it was yeah bit of a revelation that um anyway his dad
00:18:41
called me up um I couldn't remember month month later or a year later and just said hey Jamie can you I'm just
00:18:46
trying to get some information on Steve as a soldier inside the regiment can you
00:18:49
write something up I said yeah sure I didn't get around to it for a couple of
00:18:54
years um and then I just started sort of writing some stuff down and and yeah kind of one thing lead to another and
00:19:00
here we are yeah I can tell you you um almost get like a bit of motional even now when
00:19:06
you talk about him yeah it's had a real impact on you right yeah yeah it's um I
00:19:10
mean when I got told about it he uh oh sorry I I was at home I had a friend of mine call me um we had Pilots a pilot
00:19:20
that was in the regiment and he I think he' called back from his helicopter like
00:19:23
straight away saying hey uh Something's Happened with Steve we think he might
00:19:27
have gone in got no comes with them and um and I was getting that back and and you know my friend on the phone said hey
00:19:33
sorry man and I just said uh yeah I kind of don't believe it yet and then it
00:19:37
became a reality and you know I was outside crying and then I pulled myself together when my uh wife came home with
00:19:43
my son and then yeah I sort of got back into that um she asked me a couple of questions about things and yeah so um
00:19:51
yeah it's hard to hold it back uh when you see an individual like that get taken away and then you get into your
00:19:56
dark spaces about you know why other people should be walking there rather than this uh pretty significant
00:20:02
New Zealander um last last person you want to see um taken out are you a reasonably emotional
00:20:10
person no really no and and this is why it was it um was a surprise to me as well you know in general um but uh yeah
00:20:20
I I don't mind it's not a sign of weakness you know if we're going to talk
00:20:25
about feelings and that kind of thing if you feel like crying crack on you know if you got the strength to do it if you
00:20:30
don't then yeah it's up to you but uh I mean that wasn't the only time you know
00:20:34
I break down fromont my family and and there was another time when we had a memorial for him at the regiment and all
00:20:39
the boys were there and uh yeah I started talking about him and I couldn't I just yeah couldn't hold it back and uh
00:20:44
had to stop for a bit and compose myself but um you know it's uh he's not the
00:20:51
first he won't be the last and uh I'm sure I'll see him again at some point
00:20:55
what's a certainty for all of us he but yeah after going through the things that
00:20:58
you went through together you know it seems cruel to go in such a way yeah yeah yeah and that's it you know he's
00:21:04
done some pretty significant stuff and if you see it you know if you could see it if we had a film reel you could see
00:21:10
the stuff uh he did and and how he acts and you'll you'll get what I'm talking
00:21:14
about hey well thanks for sharing those insights I think like by talking talking
00:21:18
about someone like that and keeping their memory alive that's I don't know
00:21:20
it's cool it's kind of powerful 100% hey um so let's get back to the early years
00:21:24
so from what I can gather um West Oakland um you played soldiers in the bush as a kid yeah yeah played soldiers
00:21:32
we were lucky enough to be in a colder sack and uh I guess we were lucky enough to have a whole lot of kids who were
00:21:37
kind of born around the same time and um so you know after school and uh in the weekends we had a big mob of kids that
00:21:44
were out out in the back of the reserve there we had like a cold of sack all houses were there and then there was a
00:21:49
massive Reserve with an hisy that was around the edge of it and then and you know back in those days yeah go for it
00:21:54
you know don't worry about the mang you know we're going into the mangr by
00:21:57
ourselves and swimming the muddy water you know you never do that these days man or do you I'm not too sure but yeah
00:22:03
you know we used to play war make Cuts you know climb trees and um uh yeah just you know toriz the neighborhood you know
00:22:10
stealing bloody fruit off people's trees you know what I mean but we're stealing fruit off off
00:22:17
trees of the people that my parents knew you know and they'd be like ringing them
00:22:21
up and say hey Jamie just just as a deer you know and then then suddenly you know
00:22:25
there only three or four tours down I mean we're just yeah crazy I think we're
00:22:28
having laugh but um yeah it's uh yeah it was cool man we we uh were pretty lucky
00:22:33
but um yeah I just I think I always like doing that stuff you know going around the bush and and and and playing War
00:22:40
yeah and you mentioned the skydiving thing before um you're also into martial
00:22:43
arts boxing mountain bikes so it seems like would it be fair to say you had like like an appetite for calculated
00:22:49
risk yeah pretty much yeah I just like getting after things that were that you know gave you a bit of an adrenaline
00:22:55
rush and um yeah I mean Mountain biking back then when when mountain biking first became a thing all you had was a
00:23:03
solid frame bike I think all they really had at the time were were front Rock shocks like rock shock gen one you know
00:23:09
if you're really cool awesome and I used to race on I used to race mountain biking on a on a an Avan Sedona with no
00:23:15
shocks front and red a solid frame you know and that and uh and and I did that for a couple of years and then uh you
00:23:23
know I went up to I don't know if this is in the book actually but I remember
00:23:25
going up to um I used to do I used to live in bmal when I used to do some rides out to mounted and you know just
00:23:31
go up and down up the hills to get my legs used to it and um I got to the top and um I stopped and these people were
00:23:38
looking at this guy and he he had tried to ride down the the inside of the crater of Mount Eden when you could go
00:23:43
in there oh my God that is so steep yeah yeah and and he uh and he and he didn't
00:23:48
make it and this guy goes and this guy goes I went wow that's awesome and he
00:23:51
goes you reckon you can do it and I was like challenge accepted so I you I rode around the other side and there was this
00:24:00
group of people on the other side watching me and I was like looking at I was like why did you have to do why did
00:24:06
you have to say you're going to do it now you're committed and I ended up I
00:24:10
ended up going down there and and I made it I made it down there I actually made
00:24:13
it down there without slamming into the bottom because it is pretty see it's
00:24:16
almost like a vertical drop going down there um but I managed to managed to yeah through Pure Luck get to the bottom
00:24:22
without falling off and then I was like they're like yeah you know clapping me I
00:24:25
was like yeah yeah no worries and I was you know I would have been I don't know
00:24:30
13 you know I was only a young fell 13 14 so you know I must have had it in me back then you know for that sort of
00:24:36
stuff and then yeah martial arts got on the boxing skydiving all of it and um yeah when when you say you were sort of
00:24:42
like um learning into a bad like a bad crowd at that that point what do you mean can't be just selling fruit or no I
00:24:50
won't go into too much detail but yeah it was it was a we were just yeah we're
00:24:53
just Mischief you know and and what like like fights rumbles or oh yeah yeah a lot of stuff a lot of stuff yeah there's
00:25:00
there's a lot of things that went on but why don't you want to get into it you
00:25:03
embarrassed or no not embarrassed it's just um yeah it's uh I I'll just park
00:25:09
that area of my life over there um the people I was with they're actually they're actually good human beings yeah
00:25:15
but we just were a little bit mischief and we're getting too big for our boots
00:25:19
and we're getting into things uh that we shouldn't have and um and yeah and I
00:25:27
think when the Army came round when the call to the Army came up it was at it was perfectly positioned uh where I had
00:25:33
a fork in the road I was either going to go one way or the other and um and it was going to be you know boots and all
00:25:39
so uh yeah it was it was just a yeah one of those points in time where you had to
00:25:43
make the right decision and and lucky enough I didn't I had to make it myself you were 17 and a half when you
00:25:49
applied for the Army yeah um and you joined at 19 so it's quite funny cuz the
00:25:56
amount of like um discipline and self-d discipline that's required to be in the
00:25:59
Army like as a complete jaxer position to like a kid that's getting into getting into trouble right yeah yeah and
00:26:05
that's the thing and I think you know you just knew knew in your in your in your soul that you needed it or yeah
00:26:11
well again you know when I um when I had to look at my um file after 20 years um
00:26:18
and I got to the got to the the front you know the start my my application I wanted to know what I wrote on my
00:26:23
application and um at the back you know it says what are your aspirations in the
00:26:26
military and it says to join the I mean what that was at 17 and A2 so in me it was already there you know that's what I
00:26:34
wanted to do and then my first selection was a year after i' got into the army um
00:26:40
and then my second selection was a year after that because obviously I didn't
00:26:43
pass the first one so I think I was already always drawn into that and going into the army wasn't a process of you
00:26:50
know um do your Fitness testing and um you know you've been to like night evenings where you get told what what to
00:26:58
do and you know a slow progression into it um I I had an hour to decide to get into the army you know the recruiter
00:27:06
rang me up and said hey there's 30 20 or 30 people have come off the um current
00:27:10
basic training so we're trying to fill numbers straight away they've only been
00:27:13
there for a week you got to Y to think about it um when you say go you'll be on
00:27:18
the uh van in two days and and you'll be into it and so I really had nothing yeah
00:27:24
I had I just wa an hour to think about it you brang me back I said yes and then two days later I'm marching around Wu
00:27:30
getting yelled at in the snow and um and wondering what the hell you were doing oh yeah yeah it took a while but um but
00:27:37
inside I knew that was where I needed to be and um it's something that I always
00:27:40
wanted to do yeah did you did you enjoy it from the outset like did you take to it like a duck to water
00:27:46
no I SM I was smoking I mean I was uh you know uh you know partying in the weekends and bits in pieces so it was it
00:27:53
was night and day um you know I had no time I hadn't been doing any Fitness training at that point you know gone off
00:27:58
the rails a bit and uh uh yeah just um but yeah I just got into it and uh gave it my all and yeah I just focused
00:28:08
straight away from my old life and dialed straight in on what I needed to do there but um you know if you look at
00:28:14
my reports from my basic training and my infantry core training um timid weak you
00:28:20
know what I mean um that kind of thing so yeah and uh that was brought out on my farewell from the regiment always had
00:28:28
a bit of a laugh about it um but yeah I was I was a completely different um person back in those days and um um but
00:28:36
then the Army you know Drew Drew the best out of me yeah do you think that's
00:28:40
that's fair like when you read when you read that it's like were you timid and
00:28:43
week and hindsight probably yeah I guess so I mean I don't know they're looking at me you can't say
00:28:50
anything they're the ones looking at you so um you know back the thing yeah they
00:28:56
just yeah Le like it was lack of aggression and and that type of stuff and um you know and uh if you show me
00:29:04
aggression I'll beat it out of you yeah I know it was strange but um yeah you
00:29:08
know I mean I I mean it's so so long ago now that it's um yeah anyway um it Maj
00:29:14
you though was the making of the man so so so SAS what is it what does it stand for Special Air Service Special Air
00:29:19
Service okay and what's the um like what's the training or application um
00:29:24
you know process with that all all I can sort of think about is like David GG Navy SEALs Hell Week yeah no that's um
00:29:31
yeah that that like each each selection course is designed to replicate a thing you know and for us it's trying to
00:29:38
replicate the highest function of n Soldier you know weight on your back physically metaphorically checkpoint to
00:29:45
checkpoint any season weather or terrain under time pressure sleep deprivation food deprivation and there's no positive
00:29:52
or negative motivation you got to intrinsically motivate yourself so that's the highest function and it
00:29:56
replicates you know what we do at there really really well and um yeah so you get it's a 9-day selection process but
00:30:04
um you know that's really just the foot in the door we're just seeing if you got
00:30:07
the grit and then after that you have to um show us that you've got skill assimilation and being able to operate
00:30:15
at a basic level as an SE Soldier so essentially the um selection process you know with the selection proper the you
00:30:22
know the the grip and then the um you know near on year long um cyc training so it's about a 12 it's about a 12 month
00:30:31
selection process because you're can be taken off at any point in time and you
00:30:34
know we've deselected people on badging day you know what I mean or just before you're Jing
00:30:42
graduation happen before yeah they've got very close and there cuz we are training right up and testing right up
00:30:48
until the point that you get baded it's not like we have a week off and then you
00:30:51
slowly prepare I mean man I was flying and jumping out of helicopters over the top of walk SE BD you know the morning
00:30:59
of our badging you know in the early hours so um you know you jump straight in so and that was a testing phase that
00:31:05
was our testing phase and so um yeah at any point in time you can get out of there you're under the
00:31:10
microscope um you you cannot Escape uh being looked at you know every part of you is being looked at and reported
00:31:20
on and they can see you ws and all and there's no way that you can hide your
00:31:25
character flaw because we're putting you under under an immense amount of physical mental emotional spiritual if
00:31:31
you like pressure and uh we will see it you know what I mean and um you know you
00:31:36
get chances to uh you know to change certain things or you know you'll get a
00:31:41
retest um but essentially after that you know it's uh you're out the door um we
00:31:47
get psych tested so we know who's coming in um and that and um so that's perfect
00:31:52
for what we're after but um you know it doesn't stop after the it doesn't stop
00:31:57
after your badge either you know if you start um uh lowering the standard um if you're doing something that you
00:32:04
shouldn't um then yeah particularly violating the values of the regiment the
00:32:08
tenants um we'll see you out the door pretty quick you what are they what what
00:32:12
are the principles uh so the pursuit of excellence in everything we do high standards of discipline no sense of
00:32:19
class and humor and humility and that humor humility I mean we'll talk about
00:32:23
it at the um at the intercon plays a big part because um you you know you are under the pump all the time and you want
00:32:30
to take the edge off whether you're you know just being shot at in a in a in a
00:32:34
contact UM or you know you're out in the snow in the middle of War training um
00:32:38
and you want to keep your the spirits up we just have a bit of a laugh at how tired and hungry and AMCI we're looking
00:32:44
at the moment you know just have a bit of a laugh about it and that's I mean
00:32:47
that's been you know been around for years you know that those tenants since
00:32:51
1942 so how how many people start and how many people graduate is it like an average um it's hard yeah it's hard to
00:32:58
know I think you'd get probably off a selection course maybe 2 3% you do a couple of selection courses yeah I'm not
00:33:06
too sure what they do now um and that'll get trimmed down so I mean we started
00:33:10
with um 28 on our cycle of training and I think we had 11 get through and that's
00:33:18
off the back of two cycles of training which is anywhere between 100 to 200 people so it's a very small amount you
00:33:25
know what I mean do do many people self eliminate or yep yep so either you know you get
00:33:32
pulled off um you self eliminate or you have an injury that stops you from carrying on um but yeah it's uh again
00:33:42
you you could almost say that that carries on through your career because uh it just carries on I
00:33:47
mean people will um hit their threshold the pressure increases as you travel through your career um as you take up
00:33:58
leader leadership positions cuz now you're in the position of leading um you
00:34:02
got to plan and prepare there's a lot more there's a whole lot of more hours
00:34:06
that you got to put into the work um and um yeah your work's very strategic what what's the um the hardest
00:34:14
part part of the training like is there is there like an apex in particular where people self eliminate um yeah so
00:34:20
the uh for the cycle of uh sorry the selection course uh the Jerry cans is probably the the hardest thing you'll do
00:34:27
do the barrier test so that's uh you know six Jerry cans weighing you know Jerry can weighs about 20 kgs 20 L 20
00:34:34
kgs so you have six Jerry cans between five people so two two Jerry cans you'll
00:34:39
carry at the front um every sof and you're also carrying a pack weing a rifle which is about 30 35 kg depending
00:34:46
on how you P your pack um and you got to do that for 20 hours um 10 hours out 10
00:34:51
hours back and um yeah that that all that trims down numbers pretty quick and again you can't
00:34:58
not show your true self in those moments and um you know you do see see people starting to reveal their true sense of
00:35:07
identity um you know talking back to the staff and um getting angry and these are
00:35:14
the things that we don't want to see we want to see composure uh we want to see
00:35:17
people who are in control of their emotions and who will just keep going because again you know operations can be
00:35:23
very open-ended um in terms of time um they could also be open-ended in terms of how much you know uh sleep you don't
00:35:32
get you know so you got to operate for a long period of time under a huge amount
00:35:35
of pressure um so yeah that that would be the hardest uh for the cyc training every course is difficult in its own way
00:35:44
um but yeah it's it's um yeah the process of uh selection in particular was designed you know well before my
00:35:54
time probably yeah well before I was born um but it definitely perfectly aligns with operations how did you get
00:36:00
through you just wanted it bad enough yeah I just wanted to get badged um obviously you know my application
00:36:07
saying I wanted to be the SS which I didn't see um and then obviously doing the selection course pretty much
00:36:12
straight away I just always had a um drive to get in there um I was focusing on getting badged everything else was as
00:36:20
in marching out getting my belt and ber and um becoming part of the Squadron that was my mind that was where my um
00:36:27
mind was that's what I was um visualizing um everything else was just a a step in that direction um some
00:36:36
people will bite it off in small chunks like you know every single checkpoint and I suppose to do that on selection
00:36:41
for me it wasn't really about the checkpoint it was getting through the day I had to get through the day and
00:36:45
then I had to get through the next day and then I had to get through the next day and then all of a sudden it will
00:36:49
merge I just um have always had a mindset that the line will always come and go regardless you know whether you
00:36:55
live or die um you know whether you go out you know you see doing marathons there's time doesn't stop you know it's
00:37:02
ticking away and and and it will end at some point you just got to keep on going
00:37:06
you know get into your Zone if you need to um get into Flow State if you need to
00:37:11
um go where you need to go and then just uh settle into the work and um yeah the
00:37:16
end will come and then you know you should feel good about your contribution or or accomplishment yeah I notice you
00:37:22
mentioned Flow State just then and um I've heard you talk about Flow State when you talk about the Intercontinental
00:37:27
um day and I suppose all this SAS training which seems like what's the point at the time um it all added up to
00:37:35
this one moment really in a way didn't it yeah 100% yeah strange so when so when you're in the um when you get
00:37:41
badged like then whates do things get easier for a bit no they still you got a couple of years of Probation and what
00:37:47
that means is is that you're still you know you're not you know you're badged
00:37:53
um but we still now you're being integrated into a squadron trained SAS soldiers you know at the different
00:38:00
levels and uh I was fortunate enough in my time to have a uh um be part of a real good Squadron full of some very
00:38:09
strong men um and leaders and um yeah they they took us in and and sorted us out um pretty quickly but you still got
00:38:17
to demonstrate the skill set you got to uh bring yourself up to a higher level and the level just gets higher and
00:38:23
higher and higher um The Never Ending pursuit of excellence and everything we do is is a thing um and that's what we
00:38:29
expect in making mistakes um although you know you can make a mistake here but don't make the same mistake twice you
00:38:38
know because if you do then you start losing trust in others and then that's a
00:38:42
sort of a quick exit for you so yeah there's the the yeah the need to perform
00:38:49
is high every single day you can't really have many off days yeah and I've
00:38:52
heard you I've heard you talk about this and this is something we'll get to when
00:38:55
we um talk about the work you've had to do to sort of unpick um some of the military stuff but um yeah that need for
00:39:01
excellence with yourself and for others um you've had to lower your standards
00:39:06
since uh leaving the military which is it sounds easy but it's an impossibly
00:39:11
difficult thing to do if it's um the way you you know your brain's been wir yeah
00:39:15
yeah it's now it's knowing where you need to go um like I'm still pursuing
00:39:20
Excellence but the um the time it takes to get to where I need to go um with certain teams is extended you know if i'
00:39:30
if I'm if I have an objective um and I you know give give the clear intent and
00:39:36
about how we're going to get to that objective to train s soldiers we can pretty much do it right now you know
00:39:41
what I mean like they'll just get about the business and not much will be said
00:39:44
but you know in this particular space out here um the the journey is a lot longer um but as long as we're traveling
00:39:51
in that direction then it fulfills my need but um again you know you have to uh this is where you need to figure out
00:39:58
what works what you need to take from the regiment and what needs to be left behind and one of them is um you know
00:40:04
the high expectation of yourself and others um I'll always have high expectations of myself but um my
00:40:09
expectations have lowered somewhat and I'm just um being a lot more communicative a lot more
00:40:16
collaborative um and it's necessary you know what I mean because this is not
00:40:20
this is not uh building something um or you know a survival on the battlefield type training that we're doing you know
00:40:27
whereas you got to be this is why we're so high on the standards and we're so
00:40:31
pantic um because at the end of the day you put a foot wrong go left should gone
00:40:34
right that that could mean your life gone or the life of your team so making the right decisions as bang on whereas
00:40:40
out here you can you can make mistakes reorientate and then carry on well yeah yeah it's literally a matter of life and
00:40:46
death isn't it out here not so much yeah um so you do um five deployments to
00:40:52
Afghanistan uh four I had four combat um operations and then I've done a number
00:40:57
of other deployments you know which you know in and out stuff but the main ones were was were four four combat
00:41:03
deployments so the first time you you get a first of what do these deployments mean like how how long does each one
00:41:11
last for like what's the daily routine over the year yep so initially we did um
00:41:16
I think the first trip I did was four four or 6 months I think the same the second trip was four or 6
00:41:25
months this was right back in the early days when we were doing basically going out onto the ground fact finding um
00:41:32
possibly getting in in contact with the Taliban so figuring out where the enemy positions were just finding out where
00:41:38
the pointy bits were and and some of the gaps um you know making connections with
00:41:43
the local population um telling people why we're there um which is what we're
00:41:47
good at um looking for terrain um areas where we can build fobs potentially Fields some pieces which is a common um
00:41:56
and we'd be out for anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks um doing these operations and
00:42:02
the fact that uh at that particular point in time the kiwis had the longest I think Patrol out on the ground 28 days
00:42:09
or 30 days um which was not normal generally uh the Americans and and other forces would be only out for maybe one
00:42:15
or two weeks so that was pretty significant um and yeah that was that those are interesting times and I mean
00:42:23
Afghanistan is amazing place it's um you know I got the the uh opportunity to uh
00:42:30
be an outrider so we were ahead of the Convoy and we' just stay ahead give early warning um be able to um find the
00:42:37
roots for the vehicles so there wasn't much stopping and starting so we're
00:42:40
keeping the Convoy going um and so we got to see a lot more of the country than the guys in the vehicles so we' be
00:42:45
a to go right up on top of the hills see right out you know watch them watch them
00:42:50
Drive pass and I thinking man you know if this place ever um gets itself sorted out for for adventure racing of any type
00:42:59
you know mechanical or human the best you know what I mean like getting a quad oh yeah climbing um you know even you
00:43:07
know backpacking just epic you'd lose yourself in there this is just amazing
00:43:11
the people in general are amazing uh depending on what what tribe you run into but um in general they they're
00:43:17
amazing people very accommodating they'll have you on your village you know they'll sit you down you'll have
00:43:22
meals share chai talk um and it's just a different way of life you know you could
00:43:27
I could definitely see a lot of people being consumed into these um into these Villages and and integrating with the
00:43:32
cultures cuz it's very simple um and um yeah very accommodating and respectful
00:43:40
um but yeah it's just a shame but uh yeah hopefully one day that that happens
00:43:46
yeah sounds like I had a guy on the podcast a couple of months ago called um abas nazari he came to New Zealand as a
00:43:52
young Refugee um yeah do you remember the tamper incident it was like a little a little and his family like um escaped
00:43:58
on this boat it's the first time they'd seen the ocean L and been on it the boat
00:44:02
sort of fell apart and they rescued by a boat called the tamper the Australian government didn't want yeah that's right
00:44:07
was a few years ago yeah yeah he's he's a man now he's got a couple of
00:44:10
businesses but as a seven-year old boy he was on this boat lucky to be alive yeah um but yeah pre Taliban he painted
00:44:16
a beautiful idelic picture of Afghanistan where they lived you know fruit trees sort of sounded like Hawks
00:44:22
yeah amazing olive trees um you know they've got the uh what is it bandam Lakes up north just pristine blue you
00:44:31
know like kind of like the color of these chairs just blue beautiful um but yeah like I said yeah if I'm hoping I'm
00:44:38
praying that something like that opens up we just people love it tourism wise I think they do very very well so so these
00:44:44
these deployments when you're when you're leaving New Zealand going to Afghanistan for up to half a year um are
00:44:49
you are you leaving with like a a sense of excitement or Adventure or is it like
00:44:53
sort of trepidation and fear both yeah I mean um are you married at the time no no I wasn't and um I think you know now
00:45:02
that I now that I look at uh myself currently with a family I'm not too sure how I'd be
00:45:12
feeling leaving you know cuz some of the boys had um were married had you know three kids two three kids and that would
00:45:19
have been pretty significant to leave them behind for me um there definitely was that sense of adventure and and
00:45:26
wanting to get out there and particularly on that first tour I wanted to know how I measured up out there on
00:45:31
operations and I wanted to make a good impression and and just see how how I went and um I was just wide open to to
00:45:37
really try and do well over there and see how the training measured up but also you know I found myself every time
00:45:44
we flew out I'd be looking at the window um and seeing you know New Zealand go by
00:45:49
and then seeing the coast land Coastline disappear and thinking um I wonder how I'm going to come how are we coming back
00:45:56
um uh oh yeah that's what I thought you know what I mean like am I going to see
00:46:01
New Zealand again or am I is this it you know is it a one way ticket and that's
00:46:05
the unknown and then I'd just switch into cutting that out and just hey man focus on what you need to do um and then
00:46:12
and then you know new Ze would come back into view again as it always does um so
00:46:16
I was very lucky you know others weren't um but that was what was happening and you know you get you'd fly
00:46:22
into um we were in Kandahar at the time and I remember you know leaving the leaving the security of the of the camp
00:46:29
and the same thing would happen am I going to am I coming back into camp or am I not you know in which way um so
00:46:36
yeah but again like I said numerous times before we're there to represent New Zealand this is our job um our job
00:46:43
comes with um the uh possibility that you can be koled or significantly injured um or injured um and that's just
00:46:53
the way it is and the chance of that happening is pretty high given given what your what Your what your job is
00:46:58
here to do and that's you know that's different to everyone you know it's um
00:47:03
it's highend it's complex um and has there strategic effect invol what was um what's Camp life like
00:47:10
over there is it I suppose I'm s maybe thinking of like a I don't know like a
00:47:14
Jake Gyllenhaal movie or a Bradley Cooper movie but are you playing is there a rugby ball being tossed around
00:47:20
are you playing you got to you got a you get uh a small little area of the camp um and and um yeah we'd be in you know
00:47:30
you're in like these big tents um and you have like the air con is pumped in
00:47:35
there if you didn't didn't have that you'd die it' be like the worst sauna
00:47:39
you've ever had in your life you never sleep even sleeping outside be quite difficult um but yeah they have these
00:47:44
big tents and you probably got about you know 10 to 15 of the boys are in there um uh what else do we have um we had
00:47:53
like a little area where we had like a um you know a blow up pool and would have water in there so you could have a
00:47:59
bit of a swim you know just a just a dunk in there the water's quite warm though but it was better than being
00:48:03
outside um you'd have games and cards and bits and pieces um we had our own Chef which was a game changer so he
00:48:11
would um we to link up with the logistics flights coming out of Dubai and also from um North and in the USS
00:48:21
and um he would try and get fresh supplies in for us which was different to what the Americans were getting
00:48:27
um in the early days so we're pretty lucky with that um to sort of break up the monotony of having ration packs um
00:48:35
yeah we um we actually had this uh we're the only little area in Camp that had a
00:48:40
lawn and I mean it doesn't seem like much but having a green lawn is actually
00:48:44
quite nice to sort of lie on rather than the Dusty Dusty Old Rocky ground um so we had this lawn and we made sure it was
00:48:52
always watered and and that and then you had our little pool and we had a little
00:48:56
B and um we had beers and that kind of thing um only when we came back cuz when we come back from from long Mobility
00:49:03
patrols you know we' earned it that's for sure um and that and uh yeah it's
00:49:08
pretty pretty cool you know we' have it was pretty it was pretty busy really you
00:49:14
go out for 2 3 4 weeks come back and then we have a week before we turned around and went out again you know we're
00:49:20
there for operation so we're getting after it so we come back uh you know we'd you know put our vehicles in to get
00:49:26
checked mechanically we clean out the vehicles um do the deef all that kind of stuff get about a day day and a half off
00:49:34
and then we'd be reorganizing and getting brief to go out um for another job and then it would take two days to
00:49:39
build up for that we'd probably go out and do some test firing and check our
00:49:43
weapons and um you know change our tactics potentially and then uh out we go again and it just was rinse and
00:49:50
repeat has been pretty quick [ __ ] you your cortisol levels must been through the roof he you're just constantly in
00:49:55
this um state of high arousal yep the whole time yeah and and again you know probably subconsciously you're not
00:50:02
really switching off so I know in the later tours you know when I was with CIU in Camp Oly Camp Olympus in the middle
00:50:10
of town I would sleep I'd sleep 8 to 10 hours if I went to bed early enough you
00:50:16
know cuz we didn't have TV you didn't have to worry about that being in your
00:50:19
face you just read a book and gone but then I wake up and I'd just be still be
00:50:22
very very tired and so there was a I guess there's an un under Ling registering of threat um not only from
00:50:30
the outside because where we were and in Camp Olympus were quite close to the gate and you know attack point for
00:50:38
anyone hit the gate with a vbid vehicle born um IED you a vehicle full of explosives detonate and then the assault
00:50:46
force would come straight through so I think your brain's you know thinking man
00:50:51
something's going to happen it's going to happen there I mean we put sandbags
00:50:53
up and that kind of stuff to give us a bit of cover if that happen but yeah I just everyone's different but um I slept
00:50:59
well but I just didn't it I didn't feel rested yeah yeah yeah it's not normal
00:51:06
eh the things that you've seen and done it's it's crazy it's just so far from
00:51:10
nor and what's the um what's the what's the culture like in he say like what is
00:51:14
there your duty of care is there councelors on hand like are you guys it's probably even different now to when
00:51:20
you were there but um you know is um vulnerability sort of encouraged you know you guys having deep convers ation
00:51:26
with each other yeah we have deep conversations but um we're not we're not
00:51:30
trying to um coordinate it you know the boys the boys will talk to each other about things um but it just depends on
00:51:39
how close you are to certain people d a care from a leadership perspective is um
00:51:45
top priority um looking after the boys and making sure they're as safe as we
00:51:49
possibly can be but you know we're not there to cover you and coton will man
00:51:52
we're we're in the war zone you know at the end of the day we know why we're
00:51:54
there and that kind of thing but uh you know I mean Willie aata's uh you know um
00:52:00
act that earned him the VC is you know that's that represents what the brotherhood's all about you know what I
00:52:07
mean whether if you if if if the um you know the [ __ ] hits the fan so um yeah it's uh yeah Jud care in terms of
00:52:15
counselors uh we don't have a site in the early days we didn't have a site
00:52:19
there we only would bring in a Psy if we really needed to um that would be on the
00:52:24
way out you'd go through the uh debrief process um and I don't know I I'm not too sure
00:52:31
what it's like now cuz a lot there was you know a lot of good points that came
00:52:34
out of that light speed at which we were coming back into New Zealand um was something that we brought up um that
00:52:41
potentially needed to change um as in shorter deployments or no as in you know being away for four months um in a high
00:52:52
activity High threat environment and then you know being on stand and then within a week you're back in New Zealand
00:52:58
outside the gates getting picked up you know that's quite quick um regardless of
00:53:02
how many days you're sort of sitting in an intering country oh in terms of like
00:53:06
a reintegration yeah like reintegration um and I know some some countries did have um like a a week Where The Boys
00:53:16
actually came in did their site de reefs decompressed you know went out and have
00:53:20
some beers maybe they went out into the local area and did some tourist stuff like that and just slowly get their
00:53:25
heads away from the game and then then flying them back um back home um I'm not
00:53:30
too sure what the outcome is of that as we thought that might have been a good u
00:53:33
a good way of doing things but again we're just trying to find our own ways new zealanders and that you
00:53:38
know Afghanistan was one of those periods of time where we're trying to find out what works and what didn't work
00:53:45
you know and so um yeah when I was there the support the support's all there you got to ask for
00:53:53
it uh and everyone has a different experience and this is just mine it's just my my opinion but you know if I
00:54:00
want to see a psych I can ask for a psych and they will come and talk to me and we can do something about it and
00:54:06
whether or not it sits at their level or they need to bring me out to a you know
00:54:09
to a clinical psychiatrist or whatever needs to happen then um yeah it's uh it's there and it's available but
00:54:19
again it's that un it's that kind of um thinking that if I put my hand up and
00:54:25
say that um something's wrong with me then you know I may lose my job which is
00:54:31
wrong and or I may appear weak which is wrong as well you know so um again it's
00:54:37
a it's it's one of those personal perception issues you know whereas the
00:54:41
the units here to to wrap around support yeah to to keep you in we're not going
00:54:46
to spend millions and millions of dollars training you and giving you all the specialist expertise to see you go
00:54:52
out the door um you know in that way um so I think probably you know early on uh
00:54:59
people that left may or may not have uh you know W being true to themselves and we're probably more talking to each
00:55:08
other because the people that were in the Squadron with us that were on those operations we could look them in the eye
00:55:13
and say hey well you there and and let's talk about that particular incident but
00:55:17
we don't have the specialist skills to extrapolate the deeper information and
00:55:20
say hey man maybe you need some needs some help so again it's there it's
00:55:24
whether or not you want to meet people halfway um and you want to make that that change but we can go into that yeah
00:55:31
but so you don't want to you were scared of almost like showing weakness in a way
00:55:34
I think so because because at the end of the day we're so highly competitive as
00:55:37
well you know it's a competitive environment you're very highly competitive you just think that's what
00:55:43
people will think you know like and and the reality reality is couldn't be more
00:55:48
further from the truth the boys are there support you if I had discussions with someone and said hey man I'm not
00:55:53
not in a good way the boys will be wrapping themselves around you know I'm sure hoping but um the same would go
00:55:59
back the other way and it's happened in the past so at the time young Fells you
00:56:03
know it's uh it's just the way it is well you you you and I like careerwise
00:56:07
we couldn't come from more different worlds I'm from broadcast media um but
00:56:11
I've got a a mate who um had severe bipolar um ended up costing him his life
00:56:16
um but no one knew about it apart from his like um immediate his wife and his immediate family and that was the same
00:56:21
reason he didn't want to tell anyone it worked because he was scared it might
00:56:24
cost him leadership positions or opportunities yeah it's crazy it's just
00:56:27
um it's just the way we think we're trying to put on a you know put on that
00:56:31
front um that everything's okay regardless and um you know there's so many worlds out there right you know
00:56:38
what I mean you just have to look at one of those buildings in ockland an apartment in every
00:56:43
single unit something's going on you know what I mean and um you know I guess
00:56:48
as a person I think you should be saying hey man hey you know I'm kind of open to
00:56:55
anyone if they want to talk about things and people people do it or they don't
00:56:58
but um yeah I think just men in general AR they great at at doing that kind of thing feel like it's getting it's
00:57:04
getting better I don't know I think so now I think so now that that we've yeah
00:57:09
it's sort of a it's a bridge that's being built now and I think more people
00:57:13
are are coming across it's just it's just how you go about it I think when I
00:57:17
look at vulnerability um I'm not looking at myself sitting up on a chair um crying and that kind of thing that's
00:57:22
just that's not how I do it but um you know as I've been in the book I'm just
00:57:26
being honest about my particular Journey from my perspective and what's happened
00:57:31
to me and um you know hoping that you know primarily which is a purpose of the book that
00:57:38
veterans um and and serving soldiers and officers can actually align themselves to my journey and and um either get
00:57:45
ahead of some of the stuff that um happened to me um or understand where they are at this point in time and
00:57:52
potentially look at some of the tools that I used in and ways um um to get me out out the other side in one piece you
00:57:58
know mentally it's so cool it's really powerful stuff that you're sharing we're
00:58:02
just about to get to the 29th of June the um intercon but one one um here just one quick one first did you did you
00:58:09
trade a bunch of beers for some Hummers some American Hummers did I did I hear that like no I don't know where'd you
00:58:16
find that one I didn't I didn't I didn't personally this is what we did we did
00:58:21
yeah we did yeah we did so we we a hell of a swap yeah yeah well I mean it's a a
00:58:26
good swap yeah yeah so um yeah I mean we we were um we were fortunate enough to be able to you know have a few beers
00:58:34
after our trips and that type of thing and that sort of grees the wheels quite a bit with uh our our friends our
00:58:40
Coalition partners and um yeah so um I'm sure there's a lot more to it than that
00:58:46
but you know you don't receive anything for nothing and and um yeah with we we
00:58:51
just you know gave some beers and some whiskey and and got some dumes and then we had to you know what dumes they're
00:58:57
called dve desert Humvees oh right right yeah it's a different different variant
00:59:00
and um yeah but then we had to you know and then past that point we had to make them into fighting vehicles and so for
00:59:06
us to do that we didn't uh have all the sexy mounts like they do these days we
00:59:11
had the mounts for the main weapons on the vehicle but not the the secondary weapons and um so we had to go up the
00:59:17
dump and basically use that number number eight wire approach uh and and um you know uh put it all together and and
00:59:25
they were effective enough you know it um got us out a few tangly situations but um nowadays you know the the
00:59:31
regiment is a completely different Beast thanks for sharing that that's a that's a crazy story yeah yeah where are
00:59:38
those Vehicles now just like with local why not why not yeah why not yeah I'm
00:59:41
not going to definitely you know you don't want to get gifted eight eight hum
00:59:44
dumes and not give them anything for it you know for sure yeah yeah yeah um okay
00:59:50
so um yeah 29th of June uh 2011 this is the Intercontinental incident um yeah 19
00:59:57
Taliban there 20 civilians killed nine nine Taliban nine Taliban yep yep y yeah um 20 civilians killed roughly I think
01:00:05
the figures you know we'll never really know so how how long yeah how long did
01:00:10
this play out over like is is it out a couple of hours a day 10 hours hours yep okay so yes so talk us through that day
01:00:16
so when did you you got you were asleep and you got woken up yes I was asleep um
01:00:20
I got woken up at about 10:00 at night uh by one of the um uh signals operators um from the Tock the tech Corporation
01:00:28
Center and he said hey something Big's going on in the city and um he said um
01:00:33
yeah can he the senior National officer wants to have a chat to him and uh to figure out a plan so I got up as a
01:00:39
ground Commander at the time on that particular tour and I walked into the Tactical operations center and he was
01:00:45
sitting at the back of the room and then the Tactical Operation Center they got a
01:00:47
number of screens one of them was on Fox News and really we're just the best thing about that is
01:00:54
there's reporters inside theity and they get word of stuff real quick you know
01:00:58
they'll hear something they'll get eyes on pretty quick and that's what we're
01:01:02
worried about is the Optics and just a general understanding of what's going on
01:01:04
and where um so that was up I can see what was going on there we had a um ISR platform above the um the
01:01:12
hotel and um and basically it was giving us thermal imagery of of what was happening on top of the roof and at the
01:01:18
time I could see um a couple of people um moving about the roof and they're shooting off the roof towards the inner
01:01:24
Cordon the Afghan National Police had put a ring around the hotel and I come out in and out and they basically in a
01:01:31
gun battle um with with the uh the tourist on the roof and there was an unknown number it sort of fluctuated in
01:01:37
numbers and um yeah and believe it or not I said they went oh another spectac spectacular attack at that point that
01:01:44
was my second tour done a couple of those in the first tour and um and he said um and I said oh
01:01:52
yeah what's happening he said oh yeah InterContinental hotel has been attacked
01:01:55
um um there's a number of t on the group roof as you can see but just the number
01:01:59
just keep changing so we're not too sure exactly how many there are so we've got
01:02:03
some on the roof there could be some more inside the building so we're not too sure about the numbers and I said oh
01:02:08
yeah who's as the CIU responded and the CIU was the crosses Response Unit whose
01:02:13
um we were partnering at the time and and they they were based as I said in Camp Olympus which is in the middle of
01:02:19
the town and the reason why that they were there was because if a spectacular attack happened um they were right in
01:02:26
the middle of the city they could respond very quickly and um and get after it we had uh two of our um badge
01:02:36
guys down there mentoring the CIU at the time so they were there to train them um
01:02:41
so the CIU had deployed two squadrons the mentors were on their way were in coms with them and um they were heading
01:02:47
down to the hotel what's the CIU uh the crisis response unit okay yeah so they
01:02:52
were basically their role was the um sort of the security Safety and Security of um kabo and the outline provinces so
01:03:00
they do highrisk of RS essentially respond to spectacular attacks and um yeah a number of sort of you know
01:03:08
secondary and tertiary roles so um and i' I'd been a mental with CIU squadrons uh a previous toour I
01:03:16
was there in cample and Pacific for seven months and um I had a good understanding of where they were with
01:03:21
things so they heading down uh I was getting an update on what was I was getting briefed on what was happening um
01:03:29
I got briefed of the S said yep we're going to go down I actually said to him
01:03:34
hey um we got two squadrons down there they're probably going to resolve it by
01:03:38
the time we turn up do you really want us to go down there um and he said yep just go down there um enable them with
01:03:46
your specialist skills and um we'll see how this thing plays out so I said okay
01:03:50
cool brief up the boys uh let them know we're ready gave us a green light to go
01:03:53
down we got in our vehicles here down to the hotel it's like a racetrack at night
01:03:58
in Cabo there's a curfew at 10: streets are clear there's just checkpoints in
01:04:02
place you just got to stop for the checkpoints show your badge and then carry on through uh got down to the
01:04:08
hotel and um uh the outer Cordon so there's an inner and an outer Cordon um was about
01:04:15
400 m away from the hotel so we decided to stop there and not drive all the way up to the hotel because we're in full
01:04:21
view of it instead we decided to Dismount the vehicles and then U make our way through the the Shadows nice and
01:04:26
nice and slow up to the hotel we stopped at the incident control point and the incident control point is
01:04:33
basically a command center and in the command center with the all the commanders of the units that were there
01:04:38
so the Afghan National Army Afghan National Police the CIU and the minister of interior was there as well went in
01:04:44
there talked to the c or ciou uh had a check to the minister of interior as well he gave us brought us such to speed
01:04:50
on what was happening and then um we made our way up the the driveway um to where the the the hotel was just as we
01:04:58
came up beside the inner Cordon um they started getting into a gun battle again right in front of us now we could draw
01:05:08
ourselves into it but I really wanted to know where to get into the building as I
01:05:12
need to I need to get point we need to get in there quickly our CIU squadrons were already inside the building in the
01:05:17
lobby with our mentors and um so myself and Steve esin got up onto the um up onto this mound looked across the car
01:05:25
Park and I said where are you they said I'll just flash light so they flashed
01:05:29
light across the car park said okay cool Roger got you um came around behind the
01:05:34
um inner Cordon let them know we're there got to be very deliberate about that and then one by one we ran inside
01:05:40
the lobby we got inside the lobby um while backing up a bit I think the one of the things that um consumed
01:05:49
me the most about what was happening was that the the guys that were firing off the roof uh was shooting at the inner
01:05:56
Cordon but they always the aim is always off and and it was quite high and so they're firing rockets and um automatic
01:06:05
uh fire off the roof but it was it was sort of going it was some of it was coming down but a lot of it was going
01:06:10
across the top and it was heading out into the local neighborhood and so families are out there you know what I
01:06:15
mean and they have to stay put you know they' be taking a risk to get out of
01:06:18
their their houses or they they're trying to get out of there so we had to think about that and thinking all right
01:06:22
we're going to have to resolve this thing pretty quickly there you know people outside the hotel are going to
01:06:26
get killed as well people that don't want to be a part of this how how tall is the hotel by the way how five stories
01:06:31
five stories okay plus a roof and is it um having never been to um Afghanistan like when I here InterContinental I
01:06:37
think like four to five star hotel really nice is that what like an yeah yeah three atast three three to four Max
01:06:46
was a one St by the time you guys finished well yeah yeah there's quite a bit of damage but um yeah so we got into
01:06:52
the lobby uh was Pitch Black um the you were Milling about um there was a uh Dead Terrorist on the floor he was
01:07:00
carrying an AK-47 had a grenade launcher underneath it um he had a suicide vest um he had a bag and the bag had um
01:07:09
grenades for the grenade launcher and he also had normal handheld grenades he had
01:07:13
energy drinks bit of food and they all they had new shoes and they all had new shoes that was their gift I guess um for
01:07:20
um doing what they're doing um so when I looked at him you know we had to assume
01:07:24
that everyone was stressed in that way so we had to deal with you know not only someone shooting at us but you know if
01:07:30
we got close they could cack themselves off and um potentially take us out where
01:07:34
to be very careful about what we're doing um at this point in time of the cii's
01:07:41
training um history they had not done anything big like this like they had not done a large building of this size at
01:07:51
night five stories 150 rooms where were more focusing on single multi-story compounds um and so this came up and you
01:08:02
know training progression takes time so um I could see that they went really prepared uh for this so I put my guys in
01:08:11
front and we led the way with our assault group um with the CIU behind us as backup and it's it's it's dark at
01:08:17
this point is is the lights on in the hotel no completely dark we've all got
01:08:21
mvgs on our night vision goggles and um yeah and we've got our IR lasers and
01:08:26
bits and pieces so you know we can see everywhere um no one else can really see us but the other thing was that the ciou
01:08:34
um had hadn't done any type of sort of quiet clearance training which is where
01:08:39
you you're kind of sneaking through the building and being very very silent um
01:08:43
so there's a lot of a lot of noise behind us that we had to have had to think about so anywhere we were going to
01:08:49
go we're they were going to know we're coming um so went down the corridor um
01:08:55
um someone called a body to the left um I went and had a look um in the internet
01:09:00
room and um uh there's a guy that was slumped up against the wall I just did a
01:09:05
quick check to to see if he was alive um he was gone um he' been emailing on the
01:09:10
um the computer was just a guest or something just a guest yeah sitting there um leaning up against the wall
01:09:16
it's a shame um and then got out and then went to the left sort of you know we didn't have schematics or anything of
01:09:22
the the hotel um I'd been there in 200 too but I mean I'd forgotten about what
01:09:27
how it was all configured went around went just naturally found ourselves in the kitchen and then on the back of the
01:09:33
kitchen with the northern steer well which is kind of where we wanted to go anyway and then um so we went up the
01:09:39
steer well decided that we're going to kind of clear each floor all the way up
01:09:42
to the roof but it became apparent as we started doing that that the amount of fire that was coming off the roof the
01:09:48
amount activity that was on the roof it was probably best that we go all the way
01:09:51
to the roof deal with the threat clear that and then retrospectively come down clear all the clear all the rooms uh
01:09:57
clear all the floors and then start clearing everyone else out of the rooms so um we owned a small group of capable
01:10:03
people at the time um and the CIU were just plugging the gaps so we started u making our way up the stairwell Steve
01:10:11
esin was leading again pitch black was a U-shaped steer well a lot of angles was
01:10:16
open um so we started making our way up there we're making good progress and then all of a sudden uh
01:10:22
Steve came round um the stairwell and he came face to face with one of the terrorists so they had heard us coming
01:10:30
up the stairwell and they'd sent on person down um and what we didn't realize is the person they sent one
01:10:37
person down and then at the top of the stairwell they had someone covering them and he was heavily armed so this guy
01:10:43
came all the way down they met each other both raised their weapons I don't know meter you away maybe a meter and a
01:10:48
half probably closer um both started firing Steve had the mark the other guy I don't know where the rounds went would
01:10:55
have skimm Steve I'm sure um but he stood his ground dropped him and then he
01:10:59
just the guy just got up straight away and then started running back up top of the stairs probably the adrenaline and
01:11:05
then um got to the top of the steer well popped out on the roof which is what we
01:11:08
saw later detonated himself and took one of his other mates out so he did us a favor nice so these these Sude sorry to
01:11:16
interrupt um so if if they designated and you how close do you need to be to be um hit with shrep um a couple of me
01:11:26
depends on how they configured some of them are in like are just slabs of plastic explosive inside a like a
01:11:32
military style pouched vest some have bull bearings so when it explodes it actually fires those bll bearings out at
01:11:40
you so it just depends and it depends on where you're standing as well if you're
01:11:43
behind cover you'll be fine you know what I mean even if you know this was made of concrete and someone detonated
01:11:49
themselves by that door and we were sitting here fine we just probably get you know a little bit over pressure in
01:11:53
our our e drums which would Rock us a bit but essentially um it just depends on the amount of explosive um what they
01:12:01
got combined with it um but it' be a good radius if we're all just in the
01:12:05
clear then you know maybe 10 10 maybe 10 20 M kill radius maybe depending on the
01:12:13
explosive quantity just depends the number of different factors Al so um this the story like we're not even
01:12:18
halfway through but you you can sort of tell it without sort of any sort of emotion has it always been that way or
01:12:24
is it this just through like muscle memory no I mean um I'm starting to say say this now after I've heard myself on
01:12:30
podcast I kind of think to myself yeah I'm sure you you know if I was looking
01:12:34
at myself saying oh it was very matter of fact to be like yeah yeah sure you're
01:12:38
trying to be tough I'm just I'm being straight up like straight up the fact
01:12:43
where it's the facts it's we're process driven we've done this thousands of
01:12:47
times not not in an operational setting but in training we train in the dark all
01:12:52
the time we've trained in buildings like this all the time know thousands and thousands of hours
01:12:57
day and night shooting moving scenarios the whole all of it all of it combined you know leadership problems it's all
01:13:04
it's all been um designed into us so it's kind of just this has happened do
01:13:09
that this has happened do that you know it's just bang bang bang bang bang and
01:13:13
it's just constantly uh uh moving and maneuvering to put pressure on them um
01:13:20
and and get on them quickly get them focus on you and get their focus away from doing stuff to the the hotel guests
01:13:27
yeah cuz just before you said H there was a guy did sending an email that was a shame um yeah at the time are you just
01:13:34
so busy and so focused on your job that you just can't have any sort of yeah my
01:13:37
mind yeah I mean that's that but that there's a the problems there the problems there because they're either
01:13:42
going to kill the Afghan naitional police who aren't designed for this stuff and they're a pretty well-armed
01:13:46
Force I could see it RPGs you know automatic fire then I'd seen they got the grenades they got the 40 m uh
01:13:52
grenade launcher as well um and then you've got the you know the families outside so it had to be it was a very
01:13:58
easy decision to make let's just get them focused on us we're designed for
01:14:01
this they're not um and let's get it done so um so yeah I I don't know uh
01:14:08
yeah so going back to the stairwell um you know obviously that guy detonated and then um what we what we found
01:14:15
ourselves and past that point was um we ended up getting a very heavy weight of automatic fire come down on us and then
01:14:22
that was followed up by grenades and I'm not tooo sure how long that went on
01:14:26
for but um yeah it went on for a little bit the first grenade that dropped dropped by Steve's
01:14:34
feet and then he ran he ran out to the fourth floor the door was open luckily but the grenade pretty much followed him
01:14:42
all the way out he turned the corner and it followed him out bounced into the um
01:14:46
don't ask me how this is like a floak it was like attached on by a string it's
01:14:50
like a piece of string got tied onto his back it was tied onto the grenade followed him all the way out into the
01:14:54
four floor exploded threw him on his um you know dropped them uh he would have been semic cussed for a period of time
01:15:01
cuz I was yelling up to him for a while he just wouldn't come out he's on an
01:15:03
unclear floor we taking heavy weight of fire so couldn't just easily cross into
01:15:07
the fourth floor you know it was just it would be Madness so we had to deal with
01:15:12
a threat above us and then try and get them out so um yeah again we don't know
01:15:17
how long the gun battle lasted for in the stairwell there um but eventually we were able to neutralize a threat
01:15:27
above our heads and then um uh call out to Steve and he came too came around the
01:15:32
corter and we said hey you're right and he said yeah I think I'm okay I think it
01:15:35
taken a few bit of stra my back arms and legs um and then we called him across gave him covering fire called him across
01:15:43
and then went down to the third floor and reorganized themselves ourselves by that time we had um a number of CIU in
01:15:50
the stairwell so we had ourselves covered from pretty much the bottom floor up 2 43 and then they were
01:15:57
starting to clear each of those floors for us um so we have significant presence in the in the steel there I
01:16:03
gripped up the um the CIU squadron commander at the time he was in charge of the two squadrons that were there and
01:16:08
I said Hey listen you guys just start clearing all the all the people out of the out of their rooms get them into the
01:16:14
kitchen hold them there um don't let them go anywhere make sure we search them before they come in because it
01:16:18
could be a few sleepers um and we're just going to carry up to the top of the
01:16:21
roof and and deal with that you see Y no worries and it was at this point that I
01:16:26
um when we're talking about flow state is that I suddenly recognized that I was
01:16:30
just calm you know like he sitting here Cal talking away um it was very strange and and that and um at the time I didn't
01:16:39
really know anything about flow I don't think we're talking about it in those
01:16:42
days but I was definitely in flow now that I recognize it and you know my mind mind was wide open um made my decision
01:16:50
making very clear I had a my brain had had created this mental image of the entire hotel in 3D could see all the
01:16:59
floors below me I could see the floors above me I could visualize I could hear the helicopter flying around and around
01:17:04
the shooting the terorists are shooting off at the helicopter trying to get it you know F shoot it out of the sky the
01:17:10
boys and we had a couple of our guys in a in a Blackhawk helicopter that um got picked up in Camp and came overhead so
01:17:16
while we were clearing through the building they were um taking out some of the terce on the roof so I can see all
01:17:22
of that and it just made everything very easy for me Cal cool Cal collected you know and again I'm not trying to be a
01:17:29
tough guy here it's just matter if this is what happened um so I got a small
01:17:33
group of um badge guys together um because they're trained and and we wanted to go to the other steer well and
01:17:41
make our way up there um silently so we made our way up that that southern stairwell silently left the CIU to it
01:17:47
they're making a heap of noise down there anyway so I would have been drawing their attention over in that
01:17:52
direction which is what was happening went up to the top of that steer well uh put a charge on the door because it was
01:17:58
locked there was a steel bar across the door and a lock um and then just came back down and then I um called back to
01:18:05
our headquarters and said hey we're in position to assault the roof um can you
01:18:09
get the helicopter off um give it some space because you know if we blow the when we blow particularly metal it just
01:18:16
goes everywhere you know what I mean you don't want that wrapping into the into
01:18:19
the helicopter so they got into a wider orbit and then um he said yep you guys are cleared cleared to make entry and um
01:18:28
yeah I just said to the boys sayy uh everyone on that roof is uh is armed uh so whatever's in front of us just
01:18:36
drop them and um and I'll see you on the other side and um yeah see on the other
01:18:42
side meaning just whatever happens happens both yeah both meanings you know we either going to get to the side the
01:18:47
other side together or we're not so um and I'm sure that made sense afterwards
01:18:52
but uh yeah so we didn't know you know we still had unknown numbers really um
01:19:00
and so yeah it was just a kind of a question mark so yeah it was game one so um yeah gave the standby standby go blew
01:19:11
the door off at SAS threw a couple of grenades out to create space on the roof and then we moved all moved out into
01:19:17
extended line and then started um facing in the direction of of where these guys
01:19:22
were in front of us we could we had these um um uh satellite dishes that were standing up on kind of meter high
01:19:29
concrete platforms and they sort of dotted all in front of us about I don't know 5 or 10 m in front of us and then
01:19:36
behind that was the elevator the shelter for the elevator mechanism that you know
01:19:40
obviously um could pull the elevators up and down and then we're orientated to
01:19:45
the north um yeah I got out into extended line and then we just started um basically putting down fire into um
01:19:54
areas of cover and what I mean by that is cover is like a like something hard that they can protect themselves from
01:20:02
our fire and so we just we're basically doing that to keep them down and keep
01:20:05
them um suppressed you know what I mean until we could get nice and close to them take them out um there was a guy
01:20:11
underneath the satellite DH she was engaged on the left hand side I wasn't really focused on that that was
01:20:15
information I got um um um later on um and then they started moving around the left side of the um elevator mechanism
01:20:23
room room I was on the right um I could see a leg sticking out from one behind one of the satellite dishes
01:20:28
so I started engaging that came all the way around and then when I came round on
01:20:32
on the leg I realized it was just a leg that was had been separated from from the hip so um the guy that detonated
01:20:41
himself after our gun battle in the um stairwell like I said he took out a m of his so that was a whole lot of body
01:20:47
parts um when the helicopter that was circling the the roof took out a couple of took out a um tourist on the roof or
01:20:55
a couple of tourists on the roof one of them started firing and you saw on the um information that we had after um they
01:21:02
started firing at this guy he dropped and then he detonated so either did it knowing that he was going out so he
01:21:08
detonated as well so that basically the roof was covered in body parts and Blood
01:21:14
and Guts and bits and meat and heads and it was just hanging everywhere so yeah we were confronted with that um the guys
01:21:21
that were on the left-and side started getting into a gun battle with the um what we didn't know at the time but was
01:21:26
the remaining terrorist all the rest of them had been taken out um and they started getting after it it's like oh
01:21:33
yeah and so we decided to come around to try and put pressure on him he must have
01:21:37
looked he he must have looked around the corner to see if he could do the same thing that we were doing get around
01:21:42
behind the other assault group and he must have seen us coming and thought Oh the G is up and then just he just
01:21:48
stepped back and just boom detonated himself in front of us um and yeah it was quite a significant blast
01:21:55
uh came around cleared make sure everything was clear got to the top of the uh Northern steell to make sure the
01:22:01
guy that we um neutralized was um done um he was uh and then um we came back cleared the elevator mechanism room and
01:22:12
then um so what does neutralized mean neutralized means um made combat ineffective basically so you can do that
01:22:19
in a number of ways whether you um killing them is is destroying them uh neutralizing you could neutralize
01:22:25
someone just by shooting them around the legs if you wanted to make some they can't really do much else be worried
01:22:30
about being shot around the legs so there they're just tactical terms um so you know that's kind of our first portol
01:22:37
Mak them combat and effective and you know when we're in the stairwell we were
01:22:41
just making sure there was no more rounds coming down on our heads you know and grenades and so once we had done
01:22:48
that and we saw no further movement up there it was time to move on and you know we still had the CIU that was um
01:22:54
maintain in dominance in the steer well so yeah cleared to the Northern end of the steer uh and then I got called up on
01:23:01
Comm that there was a fire in the fifth floor below us so there's a function
01:23:04
room quite a big function room um that pretty much um took up about a third of the fifth floor and uh they said hey
01:23:11
there's a fire on the fifth floor it's right below you um uh you might want to
01:23:16
get out of there and I said okay no worries um so I got the boys um and said hey um just check that
01:23:23
these these guys uh are done and then we'll go down the stairwell Southern stairwell and then
01:23:29
we'll just start pushing all the guests down clear all the rooms push the guest
01:23:33
down into the kitchen like I told the CIU to do punch the fire alarms get spr sprinklers going and then um we'll start
01:23:40
getting into that phase of the operation um went down um punched the fire alarm um to activate the sprinklers
01:23:48
didn't work punched another one didn't work obviously the health and safety
01:23:52
manager needs to be fired um from there that job just wouldn't fly in New Zealand but
01:23:57
I was a surprise like oh here we go um so um yeah and then then the next problem we had to solve was reassuring
01:24:06
the guests that we were Security Forces to get them out and down into the kitchen oh so there were guests like H
01:24:13
up in their rooms yeah okay so um yeah so we're knocking on the doors and they'
01:24:18
be and would say hey open up open up um Security Forces you can come out to the coral but aot them didn't believe it so
01:24:25
it took us quite a while to get them get them down um into the kitchen so we um suppose a kiwi accent or English
01:24:32
language yeah it would yeah because initially the CIU were doing it and they having real problems with it so um yeah
01:24:37
we just started telling them to come out and then they just started coming out uh
01:24:41
we did searches searched them brought them into the kitchen held them there uh we told them that um you know we're um
01:24:49
ISF soft International Security assistance Force Special Operations forces to in the um the kitchen by that
01:24:56
point um we started seeing more Afghan security coming into the hotel um so we used a component of of the police here
01:25:05
to um provide protection for those guys in the um kitchen so I didn't have to
01:25:10
put any Manpower from our end in there um and I just said hey just just hold in here until I say that it's clear to go
01:25:17
because you don't want to be going out the doors cuz we don't know if um the
01:25:21
fif FL fif floor is clear that was the only floor had been cleared because of the there's a lot of smoke um we tried
01:25:28
to make entry in there s a couple of guys up there to make entry it was just too hard we're not firefighters we don't
01:25:33
have you know breathing apparatus and that type of thing to get in there and the Fly was still fire still raging so
01:25:40
we did that um the Afghan um firefighters arrived and they had uh AK-47s slung um which is not what you
01:25:49
see in New Zealand so it was entertaining but I can see why and um yeah they made this their way up the the
01:25:55
stairwell and started putting the fire out out up there um anyone coming out into the the fifth floor wouldn't have
01:26:01
made it far so we knew that you know we still had the advantage of time um to get in there and that and um so if
01:26:10
there's anyone up there they were probably going to be Hol Up in a room so I decided to make best use of time and
01:26:16
um we took the took the team up and um did a battle damage assessment of the roof and basically that was just
01:26:22
checking um uh all the bodies off um trying to do a count of how many uh had been killed and that was quite difficult
01:26:31
to do with the amount of body parts that were up there so we had to make up figure out what the numbers were um we
01:26:37
also had to so you're countings or heads or things pretty much yeah and and then
01:26:41
we had to make safe the um suicide vests I had um explosive ordinance disposal guys that were part of my team um as
01:26:48
part of our enabling uh force behind the assault group so they went in and did their work we count Ed the uh the Dead
01:26:57
uh we cleared weapons asn't taking the magazine off and making sure they're
01:27:01
safe um because it was now a crime scene and um you know the Afghan police have to go through due process and at that
01:27:09
time again we had more and more Security Forces coming in because we had taken the roof and and suddenly they had
01:27:15
confidence so um people started turning up with v on some kind of f forensic investigation people it's quite strange
01:27:23
so we're up there doing better damage assessment I called back to a headquarters just telling them where we
01:27:27
are are in the battle the fifth floor is still raging um and um yeah we sort of sat up there had a bit of a chat and
01:27:35
then um by this time it was about 4:30 in the morning now I've only just um kind of
01:27:44
come to the realization of time and how long it took us to get from the bottom of the
01:27:51
um car park up to the roof and we hit the roof at around about 4:00 a.m. so we arrived at probably 11 so it took us 5
01:28:04
hours 5 hours and this is what I mean I have no concept of 5 hours was about an hour that's what it felt like 5 hours
01:28:13
was so it's interesting how the brain works well you're just hypervigilant
01:28:17
that whole time aren't you that's that yeah and this what I mean it's just
01:28:20
um yeah weird 5 hours so yeah 5 hours had passed um we're standing up there and then and um yeah and then all of a
01:28:30
sudden automatic fire just the sun had come up because it comes up quite early in the morning about 4:00 at 4:30 in the
01:28:36
morning um and all of a sudden some automatic fire starts flying out of the fifth floor um and we're sort of just
01:28:43
standing around and next minute we started taking rounds um so we all hit the deck and automatic fire and it just
01:28:50
started coming from all directions thinking man what's going on here and um I remember thinking uh you know they're
01:28:59
smart they've uh decided this is plan you know this is the second stage of their uh their plan so they're probably
01:29:05
shooting at us from The High Ground so we looked around but I couldn't see any
01:29:08
firing points and it was still coming in and then we realized we're being shot at
01:29:11
by the in Cordon so the inter Cordon um had probably thought well it's kind of
01:29:17
over maybe they' turned away maybe they're having a chai and and smoking
01:29:20
and then the automatic of fire occurred they turned around some heads up on the roof and then they just started having a
01:29:27
crack and so we're very lucky um that nothing happened there so we hit the deck um crawled to the edge you know
01:29:33
waved out um and you know they wav back and the firing stopped so yeah um that was interesting
01:29:41
and then I said hey uh where's the CIU and um uh The Interpreter said uh they
01:29:47
got on their vehicles and went back to Camp Olympus because um they're going to
01:29:50
reorganize just in case there's another attack in the city and I said who who
01:29:54
told them to leave you know and they said oh they make that their decision uh by themselves and I thought uh here we
01:30:00
go so now we had the problem of uh only having a very small team we had one what
01:30:07
we well one minimum uh more terror to take care of um and now we didn't have
01:30:12
communications with the inter cordin which is going to pose problems but I didn't think it was going to be a
01:30:17
problem now that we' identified ourselves on the roof um but yeah it uh it did so said
01:30:24
okay cool let's put fresh magazines on our weapons let's go down there and um
01:30:29
and sort this guy out so we went down there went down onto the fifth floor um the fire was out at that point or the
01:30:35
firemen were just just um in the the late stages of putting the whole fire out in the fifth floor function room um
01:30:42
and you know we went down there and we're just trying to figure out how we could get into the corridor cuz the
01:30:47
whole function room was just destroyed um and it was it looked a little bit difficult to get to the other side and
01:30:54
it was an open space as well which is not ideal so while we were looking um out of the smoke out of the corridor
01:31:01
come these three guys and they Pilots they Russian Pilots dressed in their white short sleeve shirts with their
01:31:10
Peak cats and there just their trundler bags you know their carryon bags just trundling along uh made their way out
01:31:15
and we went are you guys all right and they went good good and and then they left yeah I know it was just random and
01:31:22
they were just clean you know creases in their arms and stuff like that I was thinking where theyy guys guys you know
01:31:29
what have you been up to you know and um yeah just walked out and then obviously
01:31:32
got in the taxi and headed out to the the international airport to take you know to
01:31:37
get I was thinking what the hell this is crazy that's so weird it's just random
01:31:42
so um we ended up um uh there was a balcony that went around the side of the um uh down the western side of the hotel
01:31:52
and then went into the fifth floor so we decided to go we here actually started firing from so we wanted to go
01:31:58
you know to work it back from the firing point so we started going down the uh the balcony and in the middle of the
01:32:04
balcony was air conditioning ducting and um and then past that were expanded cartridges from his AK-47 so we're like
01:32:12
okay cool that's where he's where he's done his thing so we stopped short of
01:32:14
the air conditioning du ducting and that'll the air conditioning ducting will become apparent later on but we
01:32:21
stopped short of it luckily and then um we started discussing whether or not we'd throw a grenade in there or a
01:32:27
flashbang we said well we don't you know we just saw three guys come out um you
01:32:32
know with their with their suitcases so maybe we'll just put in a flashband grenade and essentially what a flashband
01:32:37
grenade in is it's non-lethal it's just as a grenade that has whole lot of
01:32:40
explosives all all around the outside of it but they but they just make the grenade you know bounce around and it
01:32:47
doesn't do much damage might hit you in the head and that's about it but it's
01:32:49
kind of nonlethal option they just sort of you just bewildered after just distra
01:32:56
dists throws youb we see flang thre the flashbang grenade in around the corner and it just
01:33:04
went boom boom boom boom boom and then all of a sudden we just started taking a heavy weight of fire from the inner
01:33:08
Cordon again now we just straight away duck down and little did we know and just there was these like these panels
01:33:17
that were across the what do you call it the ballustrade and and they had gaps like that so panel a meter and then
01:33:24
little Gap like that and they sort of all went down down and there was a railing on top now we all hunkered down
01:33:29
behind those and luckily for us it was concrete maybe like that and I think and it must have been reinforced cuz it
01:33:36
wasn't you know what these bullets weren't going in and out what I was worried about though you know I was
01:33:41
looking up on the wall and I could see I could see sort of the Roch the chunks coming off the wall but I don't want to
01:33:47
see like big chunks from their 12.7 mm U mounted weapons that they had on heavy machine guns that they had on top
01:33:55
of their technicals um so we hunker down and we're there for quite a while I
01:34:01
can't remember how long and um I turned around and looked back the way we came
01:34:05
and I could see this Afghan policeman looking around the corner and I was like you know get them to stop firing and um
01:34:11
he just just kept looking at us and so I got up on my radio and and I just said someone get these guys to stop firing
01:34:19
otherwise we're all going to die down here and um our interpreter we got our
01:34:24
interpret across and he put his hand up and was just telling them to stop um and
01:34:27
then they stopped um and this I'm not too sure how that long that went on for
01:34:31
but it was you know 10 seconds is long enough you know uh when it's that heavy
01:34:37
um if those panels hadn't been concrete uh we we'd all be dead uh the whole
01:34:42
assault group would have been gone um and that's a fact um so we were very very lucky uh happen that's um yeah
01:34:50
there's there's there's one thing that you guys had in common with the the tban
01:34:53
that day you like you were both prepared to die yep I suppose they they went there knowing they were going to die to
01:34:59
become MERS or whatever but you guys were prepared to die yeah and I mean that's that's that's
01:35:04
the job you know and that's the job and again you know I'm not trying to be a
01:35:07
tough guy or anything like that but just it's just a um you know it's a matter of
01:35:11
fact we're there to do a job that's our job you know just like you know someone's down the dairy selling you
01:35:17
coca cross account I know it's not the same but it's it is it's kind of that's
01:35:21
what I've signed up to do you know I've made peace with it made peace with it
01:35:24
you know and that's what we're we're they do and again you know uh and like
01:35:28
I've said said many times before it's like training for rugby but never really
01:35:32
playing the game you know as soon as it's game time you really want to get into the game you know what I mean and
01:35:36
so when youve been out of the game for a while you defitely want to get back in there and see how you role particular
01:35:40
particularly in these these Peak Peak experien these Peak situations so yeah so um yeah the firing stopped very lucky
01:35:48
to get away with that um Steve was in front of me and and I said is everyone okay and um Steve said uh I think i'
01:35:54
been shot through the side of the head I was like what um and and um he was he was just in front of me so he turned
01:36:00
around said give me a look and he um and I he said I justed through here and I had to look at him in the the round I
01:36:06
don't know what happened it must have been a Ricochet or I'm not too sure if
01:36:10
his head was too far back in between the gaps but um it had gone just straight through there and skimmed might has just
01:36:17
skimmed off his skull and his and his ear was SED Trump style oh yeah pretty yeah pretty much yeah yeah pretty much
01:36:23
yeah and um and and so uh I looked at him and he looked at me and I said have you had
01:36:33
enough I had to take the opportunity I had to take the opportunity this is human human right it sounds crazy coping
01:36:39
meis sounds crazy well that's what I mean it sounds crazy and he looked at me
01:36:42
and he smiled and I went have you had enough yet cuz he had just been you know been
01:36:47
down in the stairwell got grenaded now he's up here shot through the side of
01:36:52
the head and he's and he's starts and he starts laughing and I said yeah you're
01:36:56
going to hospital now and he goes no I don't need to go to hospital and I said
01:36:59
you're going to hospital I'm taking you out you know what I mean but this is the mindset
01:37:05
again selection One Foot In Front of the other get the job done you know what I mean like that's it you know like the
01:37:10
job's not done yet but um you know once that happened everyone else was fine and
01:37:16
I just said That's it man like this is going to go Pier sh we don't have comms
01:37:21
with the in cordon and and that and and we've just been shot at by them twice
01:37:25
this was a little bit too close um there's plenty of security inside the hotel now they can they can sort this
01:37:32
out so uh we're all happy with that went down the stairwell um we had a medic
01:37:37
down there so we used him to um patch uh Steve up best he could and then we sent
01:37:41
him off to hospital got on the vehicles I gave a hand over to the to the um incident controller on the ground an
01:37:47
Afghan Commander um he said yep no probs and so we started to make our way back out to to Camp warehouse now what we
01:37:55
didn't know is that the CIU had gone back they got wind of the terrorist that
01:38:01
had shot out through the top floor and they were told to come back and sort it out so as we're going into the city we
01:38:07
intercepted them and then followed on behind them because wherever they go we go so although I wanted to leave we
01:38:12
couldn't we couldn't leave now because we still we're in a position our role
01:38:16
was still there to enable them so you guys like groaning not really no it was just now I
01:38:22
was just thinking right with we're going to have we're you know I'm going to have
01:38:25
to have a discussion with them about firstly leaving without telling me and and what has happened post that and uh
01:38:32
now we're just going to go through a situation where we have to be real methodical and clear everything um
01:38:38
completely now yeah and and yeah so went back um you know said to the squadron commander like why did you guys leave us
01:38:47
behind we have no comm's connection with u local forces he said oh sorry you know
01:38:52
not good uh I said yeah we we're very lucky we just about we've been shot
01:38:56
twice by the the interance so um let's get the groups in there check the floors
01:39:01
again um know that there's someone up on the fifth floor and um to be prepared
01:39:05
for it so he said okay cool we'll sit down here let us know when it's clear
01:39:09
and we'll support you if you need it he goes yep no rose so everyone got about
01:39:13
their business there's a group up the top um they went around the same way we
01:39:17
did on the fifth floor on the balcony and then they crossed over the um the air conditioning duck couple of guys got
01:39:23
over all right another person went over kicked it and activated a rudimentary IED which is an explosive device so
01:39:29
basically booby tra the um the air conditioning ducting oh um and so that could have been us you know um don't
01:39:36
know why we stopped short of it who knows luck yeah just luck again um and so one of the CIU guys ran back down who
01:39:43
got um who connected it and he had a big chunk out of his arms so we patched him
01:39:47
up and then he went off the hospital so we ran up to the fifth floor again uh got our EOD team to drag clear the rest
01:39:54
of the debris just in case there's any other uh IOD in there and what they've
01:39:59
done is just pausing that um going back to the start when they first went into the initial attack so they went in there
01:40:06
obviously killed some guests took positions up in the hotel the roof and then they started rigging up little um
01:40:12
trip wire grenades around the place so they they rigged the place up as well just with secondary explosives so um we
01:40:18
had to be uh careful of that um and that that uh that actually claimed a few lives after we left as
01:40:25
well again we didn't have the capability to do the we had a smaller reduced number of special force of soldiers we
01:40:32
had to leave it over to uh bigger entities to go through there and do a proper clearance of the hotel in terms
01:40:37
of clearing of explosives and bits and pieces we could only do so much just we're essentially one assault group um
01:40:43
which is not ideal so anyway went up there cleared this air conditioning duting um went into the fifth floor
01:40:49
grabbed some of the cou guys and so we had to do manual entry into um these rooms um because you know we weren't set
01:40:57
up for um 150 rooms in a hotel you know we're essentially doing high-risk arrests in the city um and you know
01:41:06
compounds which were quite small you know like a house like this um or out in the in the rural areas so you know to do
01:41:12
a hotel like that you need um you know quite a number of people with specialist explosives and um and you know people
01:41:20
with different roles um so we had to do it um manually as then using a hulie bar and um a bar
01:41:26
that can open doors um or you know just kicking the doors down so we're using
01:41:31
the C you to do that they blew out quite quick so we had our guys sort of getting
01:41:34
in the mix with them so we got sort of halfway down the corridor and we're making it our way uh
01:41:41
I was on a right angle and um so the door's like that and I was on a right angle here the entry team were making
01:41:47
their way in this way um so they cracked they cracked the door as soon as the door started opening up up bam there was
01:41:54
a massive explosion and um and everything just disappeared into a ball of dust at this point um and I've never
01:42:02
had it before and I've never had it since um and hopefully I don't have it
01:42:06
since but um everything went into slow motion for me so the the camera started slowing down um obviously I now know
01:42:13
that my brain is um you know trying is wide open and try to absorb the information that's in front of it um and
01:42:21
I just saw the smoke slowly clear and then out of it the CIU was sort of just slowly trying to CLW their way out of
01:42:28
the uh the rubble and I could see look of you know shock and disbelief on their faces I grabbed them as they went past
01:42:34
pulled them past me and then um I called I could hear someone call out man down and the slow the smoke slowly um sort of
01:42:43
um disappeared and directly opposite the door one of our guys um was slumped up against the wall and so I could see him
01:42:51
and um and I just ran I ran in everything started to speed up again grabbed him picked him up pulled him out
01:42:58
of the um the um out of the the way of the door and into the next room cuz it was all they're all made of concrete and
01:43:06
I said your right man and he was um non-responsive as and he was he was uh conscious but not responding um to um uh
01:43:16
verbal cues and so I ran him down the corridor put him in a chair he was white um he he had a few cuts to his face and
01:43:24
um and in his arms and um he started he started to go he starting to go unconscious so I just yelled in his ears
01:43:31
to stay awake and then um we started to patch him up um I started getting involved in that because he's you know
01:43:38
he's a m of mine and then you know as a ground Commander you shouldn't be
01:43:41
getting in on the finer details so pull myself back got the guys to get on him and then I moved down the corridor to
01:43:46
see if I could help with any anyone else got down there the room was uh destroyed
01:43:52
um know pipes were you know the water pipes were severed you know there's water spearing everywhere the whole room
01:43:58
was just destroyed um I could see other CIU members uh getting pulled out down the coral they were
01:44:05
injured um and I said to my mate um one of the other operators here I said what was that was it an IED uh that was
01:44:13
connected to the door was a was a suicide um suicide vest he said I was a suicide V and I said and I said how do
01:44:19
you know that and uh he said his head's at the door oh yeah so you know when they when they
01:44:25
have these suicide vest generally what happens is their head pops off and his head was sitting right there at the door
01:44:30
so like oh yep so what he had done was um you know he he had heard us coming down the corridor and he was just
01:44:36
waiting playing the waiting game waited for us to come all the way in and then as we started making entry he just
01:44:40
walked straight up to the door B detonated himself in the hope of ideally taking yeah killing a couple of people
01:44:46
and taking them out with them so um there's a there's an interesting news
01:44:52
article from Al jazer on YouTube um that your listeners would probably want to see is that um uh it's actually got the
01:45:02
conversation between the guys in the hotel and their handlers in Pakistan um and you can hear the guy talking about
01:45:09
how he's just going to wait on the mattress he can hear us coming and then um he's looking forward to you know
01:45:15
meeting his maker and and they having a laugh about it so um yeah it's uh yeah
01:45:20
it's very very very interesting stuff so yeah um so the guy that uh got injured there so
01:45:28
we had obviously St gone to the hospital now we had this guy uh who was injured um and um we didn't know um you know
01:45:38
what what was potentially uh wrong with him other than you know the superficial wounds that he had um were're not
01:45:44
superficial they're pretty significant but um we needed to get into a hospital
01:45:48
so he could really get checked out by your standards are superficial well well yeah yeah was just it's more not not
01:45:54
superval but um to a point where you know our area of first aid expertise comes to the Limit and so we need to get
01:46:00
them off to someone else just in case things go terribly wrong like the fact he had a whole lot of ball bearings um
01:46:06
fight at him um meant that uh some some of the some of those ball bearings were were inside of him and um interestingly
01:46:13
enough you know they found when he got to the hospital that um one of the bull bearings I think it ricocheted off his
01:46:19
um collar bone could be wrong um but it actually um uh I think it went into his chest cavity and potentially even
01:46:27
punction his lung and he was um tensioning just before he got tension thorax uh just before he got to the
01:46:32
hospital so lucky we got him out of there so that was it for me done um we taking two casualties I had a small team
01:46:40
I had to think about you know an operation that was coming up in 3 days time um so you know there's a lot of
01:46:46
things to think about there I need how long is it going to take people to come from New Zealand quite a long time um
01:46:52
and then they have to inducted so um yeah I just thought you know things are going from bad to worse uh if there's
01:47:00
anyone else in here I'm just going to let the the CIU deal with it they can do
01:47:03
it themselves pass that point so um yeah we bailed out of there uh left the CIU to it and um and then came back and and
01:47:12
got the other guy to hospital checked in with them made sure steel was all right
01:47:16
uh the guy that we pulled back from the fifth floor he um went ended up going to
01:47:23
Germany straight away uh so we saw him off and then uh we came back did a debrief uh had a bit of breakfast lunch
01:47:30
brunch and then uh went to sleep and then uh sort of debriefed the um at the command meeting at about 6:00 and
01:47:39
um yeah and then yeah we're out the door again a couple of days after that so how
01:47:45
do you how do you sleep after that in terms of yeah know I know you're tired you're
01:47:52
un un believably exhausted but just um when you close your when when you close your eyes like what do you
01:47:59
see uh Darkness okay no yeah I know you're saying I don't see I just I just to be
01:48:06
honest I was that tired like by the time we had come and because it's um again
01:48:12
you you because of your training you you kind of switch off but you don't it just
01:48:16
depends I mean in in Camp Warehouse where we were I I could actually switch off in Camp Olympus when where I was at
01:48:22
and in a previous tour that was where it was difficult to switch off because you
01:48:27
wereing straight straight outside the Gat whereas over in Camp Warehouse you got a full Coalition Force looking after
01:48:32
your security and so I could actually sleep so you know by the time I went back done the debrief went and had a
01:48:38
feed had a shower soon as I had a shower and I was out of my gear and my weapons
01:48:42
were away it was sort of like my brain was like oh yeah we're done and then it
01:48:45
was just you know cuz you can imagine the adrenaline that's being secreted over a 10hour period it's just you know
01:48:51
the whole system yeah and so um yeah and so I just I'm quite good like that I can
01:48:58
go to sleep in 30 seconds ask my wife you you guys you guys are like um like deprogrammed human beings aren't
01:49:05
you yeah uh in what way like it just just how matter effect you know you you have to have to do everything like in an
01:49:13
environment like that it's just so so matter of effect it's like your robots
01:49:16
in a way yeah it's um but there's no you you have to remove every bit of emotion
01:49:21
from it really don't you Yeah well yeah and that's the thing and again this is
01:49:25
this is the beauty of doing training that is as close to realism as possible and that's what we're trying to do um is
01:49:31
trying to get that that realism and training um with everything and so that's what sets you up for success and
01:49:38
I think you know research shows that that is that that is what helps with the mental uh your mental health as well
01:49:45
post a lot of these incidents because of yeah if it was anyone else um you know they' probably have nightmares for the
01:49:52
rest of their life but for us um because it's been repetitive training over and
01:49:56
over and over again um it's like oh yeah okay cool still very significant event
01:50:01
you're being shot at um you know there's been massive explosions but again you
01:50:05
know standing a right angle on that at that door and the explosion go off it was a shock and that's why my brain
01:50:11
slowed down but I've been on a right angle on a door doing explosions for years you know and so um yeah it's not
01:50:19
like anything haunted me I mean I can't speak for again this is me personally in
01:50:24
my life um but I'm sure you know if if I get uh in it in it deep with a lot of
01:50:30
the guys um they may have had different experiences post that um and it just depends but that's my perspective
01:50:37
realism of training sets you up for Success the repetitive um shooting and exposure to the different
01:50:44
scenarios um and the problems that are put in front of you that you got to solve the selection course the front
01:50:50
loading of the selection course and everything else that they put in front of you
01:50:53
um sets you up for success for the battlefield and and after um a night and day like that do you have is there a lot
01:51:00
of paperwork like a big incident report or a review you know yeah yeah you got to write a report and um then that that
01:51:08
that gets presented to the senior National officer and then he represents that at the um the ISF soft level so the
01:51:15
Coalition level to the fourstar general um because a tax like that um clearly you need to be briefing and then
01:51:24
obviously that goes back to New Zealand and will go all the way up to the prime minister to say that you know New
01:51:28
Zealand troops have been involved in a significant event in the city and and John Key um obviously relayed that and
01:51:34
he said exactly as as we said you know we had to take over we had to take the lead we made that decision and and that
01:51:41
was for the protection of um not only the ciou um but Al also you know civilian lives and around the hotel and
01:51:48
and security forces so so yeah I mean you know when when I talk about this um it's a
01:51:57
it's a it's a it is a peak event a peak experience was it was definitely a
01:52:02
culminating point in my career like I'm not too sure if anything could top that
01:52:07
um but at the time um you know one of the boys said hey I think this probably one of the one of the biggest operations
01:52:13
um that the regimen has been on and I was like yeah you reckon you know so just tossing it up you know but again I
01:52:21
was on the phone you know I was talking to headquarters and I was still in process mode you know and we really were
01:52:26
only halfway um that and I was like yeah I guess so and it didn't really dawn on
01:52:31
me until um you know I got handed the the letter um stating that I was going to get presented with the gallantry star
01:52:39
and even then I said to the co you sure D it's worth that he said well I don't make these decisions so yeah I
01:52:47
don't know [ __ ] it makes me think what what the hell do you have to do for a VC
01:52:50
oh my god um do this this might be a entirely inappropriate question um like do you
01:52:57
know how many people you you killed that day or in total um so well we we took all nine of them out yeah so we just
01:53:03
hunted them down so between us and the um and the um the guys in the platform above our heads yeah nine they're bad
01:53:13
people so it feels like you're removing a cancer you're actually saving lives by
01:53:16
taking yeah it's a oneway ticket that's uh you know whether you like it or not
01:53:21
theyve they are in there to um get the world's media on them they're there to
01:53:27
be martys which is a good thing for them as well because they think they're going
01:53:30
to a better place and maybe they are who knows um they are there to legitimize um
01:53:36
themselves as a you know an organization a terrorist organization um they're
01:53:41
there to get uh to maintain their funding streams to get further funding streams and then also recruitment plays
01:53:47
a role in that so they glamorize martydom in those operations and uh that's all part what they're about um
01:53:53
and you know at the end of the day if we're looking at perspective then you know where the Dark Knights say the
01:53:58
white nights you know if you ask me I'm the White Knight there the Dark Knights
01:54:01
it's just that um interesting uh position that we find ourselves in there but um you know again going around and
01:54:08
killing innocent civilians and that type of thing is just um you know not something that the progressive World um
01:54:14
will tolerate and um it's people like myself and my team and other you know people that have come after me and
01:54:21
Special Forces around the world and security forces around the world that's what we're designed to do is to meet
01:54:26
these guys head on and make sure they don't do any further damage when you um
01:54:30
heard you tell that that story and you tell it so well now on on a number of podcasts do you um when you tell it are
01:54:36
you sort of on autopilot or are you a can you smell it and see every time it's
01:54:40
bur into my skull yeah I can I can walk it through in my head every oh thanks for sharing it cuz I'm sure it's not
01:54:47
easy yeah it's um it's it's um yeah I've said it's I've talked about it so much
01:54:54
it's um yeah the best the best thing about it is is actually extracting further information from it like I
01:55:01
didn't actually realize until um you know the last few hours actually that uh
01:55:08
it took us about 6 hours to get up to the to the roof I I didn't really think
01:55:12
about it and now I'm like man how where did that time go should have taken the
01:55:18
left way quicker yeah maybe I should have put the stopwatch on and go okay so that was um that was 2011 and then um
01:55:24
2016 um your son's born and you're suffering burnout and that's when you
01:55:29
that's when you leave the army so did five five more years um yeah was was there a moment or an incident in
01:55:35
particular that you realized [ __ ] I got to get out I got to do some work on me yeah so um by the time I was leaving
01:55:43
I realized uh that I was completely I was just tired all the time tired I was burnt out um I did have long and
01:55:50
shortterm memory loss um and you're probably thinking did you have any memory at all and no I didn't
01:55:55
really um that became apparent that raised its head when I noticed that a friend of mine who I'd sered with in
01:56:02
Balian in the regiment n him for 20 years came into my office and we're having a chat and then he left and I was
01:56:07
and I was thinking what's his name again and I had to look on the computer to
01:56:12
find his name and I was thinking uh this isn't good I wonder why this is happening you know and I found I had to
01:56:18
have my notebook with me at all times and I had to write everything down otherwise I'd forget it you're only 42
01:56:23
at this point uh 41 42 40 yeah 40 41 um and then and then I noticed that I was sort of just dragging my feet when I was
01:56:32
walking around I'd trip over the doorstep I'd always trip over the doorstep I'd be sitting right right in
01:56:36
like this in meetings and people would be like you know sit up what are you doing sit up and um and and I just yeah
01:56:44
I was just I was just a I was sitting inside myself you know it's just it was
01:56:49
very strange and um you yeah I just I remember talking to my wife and on a Sunday night and I just said man I think
01:56:58
I think that's it you know and it's a hard realization cuz it's really hard to
01:57:02
get in there I've had all these experiences um you know I was I become an officer so I'd taken on a uh new
01:57:12
position and um career path and my goal was to like take that all the way um but
01:57:18
I just it was a moment of realization and just being realis sck and just saying am I going to be be able to give
01:57:24
it my all and um yeah it was a hard pill to SW so um yeah my son's there my wife's here my wife highly ambitious
01:57:33
she's got um her own path to travel as well and it was a case of um you know at
01:57:39
that particular point in time is is supporting what she was doing so so yeah put on my P papers the next day um I had
01:57:48
3 months worth of um long service Lea and um that was my whole sort of uh leaving time if you like as part of my
01:57:59
contract is 3 months you know by time you put your papers in 3 months and you can leave so put my papers in spent a
01:58:04
week just putting my gears away signing at the March out form left came back for
01:58:09
my farewell and then I drove out the gates and then it was it and this is where um you know initially it was okay
01:58:18
CU I thought I was on leave you know had that leave mentality and then they went
01:58:22
into months and then all of a sudden the realization I've left and now I'm not
01:58:27
part of the culture yeah and it just go and then it started rebling itself and then I so then I started
01:58:34
um trying to replicate the the pattern and so the first thing I'd do would be
01:58:42
um PT in the morning you know just be training hard um whether there's a long
01:58:46
runs or you know going out and um you know smashing smashing the assault bike and doing weights and wads and whatever
01:58:53
whatever you call it hour hour and a half you know on the rower and then I'd
01:58:57
come back in I'd be studying for my masters I had the um you know uh I was renovating my house I thought oh you
01:59:05
know maybe I'll go and get a pistol join a pistol cup keep my shooting up keep
01:59:08
the rifle get a rifle do the rifle shooting just comat mindset you know staying in that mode you know to to stay
01:59:14
close to um something I'm comfortable with um and so I picked up on all of that um um I also picked up that um and
01:59:25
and I've said this before as as the you know I used to get angry uh coming coming home was when I was still
01:59:33
serving I'd be quite angry coming home and um and so I get in my car and normally you know the perception was as
01:59:41
a trip Commander for me personally was that you I needed to be at work before the boys and leave after the boys and
01:59:47
that was just me personally you know no one was asking me to do that but um exell thing yeah excellent thing yeah
01:59:53
and and what I think you know how I think a SS officer should be acting um but my son was born you know I had um
01:59:59
responsibilities at home so I had to leave about 4:30 while the boys still there and that that was really hard pill
02:00:05
to swallow and so I used to get angrier the close got home come home and then you know put my bag of [ __ ] on the
02:00:11
ground and expect people to eat it you know not not in a physical way or anything like that just just being you
02:00:16
literally being a pain in the ass and just just everyone having to walk on eggshells around you yeah yeah exactly
02:00:20
yeah distracted and you know not present and yeah you just tend to I mean it's
02:00:25
not just not just you like um all of us you tend to save your worst behavior for
02:00:29
the people you love the most it's just how it is yeah it's unfiltered it's like
02:00:32
your kids right it's your your kids when they come home unfiltered why cuz it's
02:00:37
because they can you know it's a safe space you know what I mean but you're an
02:00:41
adult so uh yeah yeah but but it happened over and over and over again and then uh I just came to realize that
02:00:49
um you know I thought she was taking me from my away from my High strategic P purpose like taking me away from work uh
02:00:55
and what what I was um what I um uh perceived to be something that was really big and important and it is but
02:01:03
you know the most important part of your life is your family and um you know they're going to be the ones ear when
02:01:08
everything else is uh sort of shuts the doors on you so that was interesting and
02:01:12
so anyway going going traveling forward again to transition um you know I had to
02:01:17
figure that out um you know I'd have dark thoughts when I was running and I was using those to motivate me to get
02:01:23
get my energy to go out on on runs and train and just be this you know Savage yeah yeah yeah just what do you mean d
02:01:29
thoughts oh like you know if I went for a run I'd be thinking about or even in
02:01:34
the gym I'd be thinking about scenarios overseas you know where you know we come
02:01:39
under contact and this would happen that like just running it through my head and
02:01:41
I just allow that to happen I just allow my brain to to invent any scenario that
02:01:45
it wanted to um to give me the energy to just just get after it and then if I was
02:01:50
running you know around peur you know I was thinking oh you know if a couple of guys come around the corner I'll do this
02:01:54
and that just crazy just why why what was the point and so I slowly started picking up on that and then I I would
02:02:01
pick up on that and then I would start overlaying that with positive thoughts so I started thinking about things I
02:02:08
wanted to do build I wanted to build a um security company like Niche so I started just as soon as that would
02:02:14
happen I just started going into design mode and i' start designing things on my
02:02:18
head or you know something that I wanted to achieve in skydiving start visualizing that where I wanted to go
02:02:23
planning and then it took about it literally took about six weeks six seven weeks probably um and then my mind just
02:02:29
changed and it started going into concept mode uh rather than the dark thoughts and I realized I could get
02:02:34
energy on on that the other thing was um uh like hypervigilance and being completely aware of your surroundings
02:02:43
like always no one's going to get me you know what I mean like um making sure
02:02:46
your head's on a swivel all times um and so I had to shut that down that was a
02:02:51
hard one because you know I didn't want anyone to catch me out you know on the on the Trot
02:02:56
you know like if someone got me I'd be like man you know I should have known
02:02:59
you know or sitting in the corner you know with your back against the wall observing the the entry uh to the to the
02:03:06
you know to the restaurant or wherever you're sitting I mean all that's just
02:03:09
just playing in your mind so I had to that was hard you you even did that today when you arrived at my apartment
02:03:14
there's a there's what's I'm already watching yeah I'm already looking thing over there
02:03:19
yeah um but um yeah I find that I I have definitely switched a lot of that stuff
02:03:25
off I'm a lot more Cala um you know things don't draw me in as much as they used to um but yeah it was just
02:03:35
recognizing all these all these things a distraction of you know um things that happen on operations uh things that you
02:03:41
have to do and you know where you need to be and I'm still working on I'm by no
02:03:46
means the finished product I mean we're all we're all living in a fastpaced
02:03:49
world we're all busy and stuff like that and trying to be present at at one particular point in time gets quite
02:03:54
difficult um and so you know it's trying to make sure I got time for my son and
02:03:58
my wife uh at the end of the day and and I'm talking and giving them a hug and a
02:04:02
kiss and that kind of thing and doing the same when I leave um otherwise that time passes and you wish you'd had it
02:04:08
back um yeah so it was quite difficult it was a very tumultuous period between my wife and I um she's had some
02:04:18
experiences um overseas as well in critical incidents she was a um an officer in the New Zealand Army and she
02:04:25
um spent some time away um in Israel we lived in Israel for a year um and she was a UN military Observer and she she
02:04:32
got she got taken hostage so um she had some stuff that she had to work out as well even though she's a
02:04:38
psychologist and that and so um yeah for a while there it was just uh you know beating each other up a little bit not
02:04:44
physically just you know with words um and and and just working things out and um I think we're in a better place was
02:04:51
still very busy but um I think we've just we're sort of sitting on the floor
02:04:57
you know Death By A Thousand Cuts you know what I mean and it's like you know
02:05:01
we're a we're a lot better than what we used to be that's for sure but it's
02:05:03
taken quite a bit of time and and you know and this is this is a path you travel and so you know if you you either
02:05:11
do or you don't you know if you yeah you just either do or you don't so we've
02:05:16
we've managed to get this far because we're quite strong minded and we've
02:05:19
decided that our relationship is worth um um holding on to and you know for our son's sake not only for us but um yeah
02:05:26
so still a lot to work on I mean yeah some of the some of the things that some of the lwh hanging fruit things uh do
02:05:35
bode well uh in your recovery and definitely the um the meditative breathing um yeah I've heard you talk
02:05:42
about this box breathing what is that yeah box breathing so box breathing is you know four 4 seconds in 4 seconds
02:05:48
hold 4 seconds out 4 seconds hold and you just go round and round um and you know for me you know I sort
02:05:54
of start doing that that deliberate breathing like full you know full amount of air in the lungs until
02:06:01
you feel the pains and you hold it and then you know breathe all the way out so you got exactly no air in your lungs and
02:06:06
and you hold it for 4 seconds you just go around the box now I do that for 20 cycles that that sort of dials me in and
02:06:13
then um I sort of I just go to normal breathing and then I start focusing on other areas of my body whether it's my
02:06:18
um you know the wind playing with my or you know I can feel stuff going across my face the nose my shoulders and then I
02:06:25
go all the way down and then I get to a point where I'm just listening to my
02:06:28
heartbeat and trying to feel it in my fingertips which is you know acute sensory sort of um dialing in on on that
02:06:36
so it gets your mind away from your thoughts and what will happen is is that you know as you're going through that
02:06:44
process your mind starts drifting and wants to drift out into other areas might be something that you're wanting
02:06:50
to do surely you got a Time to meet or something that's happened in the past
02:06:53
but you need to be present here or you know you hear a um you know the sound of a horn going off from a car but you got
02:06:59
to bring yourself back into the present moment so all you're really training
02:07:02
there is refocusing so focusing is one thing but refocusing is a real skill you know it bring yourself back again and
02:07:08
again again to the present moment and being present in the present moment and once you get that you become a lot more
02:07:13
aware about your you know as well as with the breathing and and and going back to yourself you start becoming more
02:07:19
aware of how you think and feel about things so controlling your thoughts how you're
02:07:23
feeling at this point in time putting yourself in a bit um sort of um position emotionally and now as I said before is
02:07:32
that you know it kind of it's kind of like a um you know one of those um uh monitors at a at a at a hospital where
02:07:41
you can see the heartbeat going on they got all their vital signs I can track my
02:07:45
emotional state at any given point and it changes all day long you know you might wake up you have coffee yet you
02:07:51
might be a little bit grumpy or sad have your coffee how do I feel now coffee is
02:07:55
one of those things that either gives you a real good boost or it can can do a number of things you know depending on
02:07:59
what you're doing but I try and set myself up for Success there um and then if I'm not feeling too good about things
02:08:05
I I'm questioning why that is you know I'm not just running with my emotions
02:08:08
anymore um we all have that ability if we become self-aware and that is through breathing essentially is what what's
02:08:15
allowed me to get there not only the the fact that breathing brings you back down
02:08:18
from your um sympathetic to your parent athetic nervous system um people can look that up but all the researchers
02:08:25
here about the benefits of of breathing and and refocus and um yeah I think it's
02:08:30
it's helped me hugely in engagement with others um being present in the present
02:08:36
moment for meetings and that kind of thing and there's always a training there's always a training um uh scenario
02:08:44
in front of you you know meeting is a great one staying present for an hour try that completely present listening to
02:08:50
the person talk to you or talk to others and staying right there in in the conversation and not letting your
02:08:56
thoughts dble away anywhere else you know um so breathing can do that and and sort of that concrete Focus um at
02:09:02
particular points but um yeah it's helped me out greatly just to uh get a grip of my thoughts and what you know I
02:09:09
should be thinking about um and what I let in and what I don't let in it's a
02:09:14
lot of work though and you you've done it all yourself yeah essentially out of
02:09:18
out of necessity do you think I think so yeah and and um but you know things happen for a
02:09:24
reason um I've done some professional courses uh looking at these things as well um and you know again the research
02:09:33
is out there it's just all all the information is out there it's just again
02:09:37
it comes back to you and whether or not you're going to apply you're going to
02:09:39
apply yourself to it in in a long period of time with the mental stuff I think that um you know there's three things we
02:09:46
can train our mind body and our Craft um we're always good at the The Craft the
02:09:51
body stuff you know their work or whatever it looks like and and and arguably the body but the mental stuff
02:09:57
we don't really put much into we just roll with our character traits and think
02:10:02
well that's just me and yeah it is it is but you can identify some of the areas
02:10:07
where you know things may not be um uh or may not suit uh this particular situation um in particularly for
02:10:17
military people you know a lot of the traits that we um were developed into us over time um do not have a place in in a
02:10:26
normal sort of situation you know where it's with your talking to your family
02:10:31
and and talking to your wife or you know one of those things that I had to get past was you know high expectations of
02:10:36
myself and others and I had high expectations of my wife and my son I mean it's just it's just
02:10:41
garbage you know you know I mean like these your family you let some go yeah yeah yeah yeah um and is that with the
02:10:49
book um of who us breaking the habit of being yourself is that where this comes in yeah yeah who who who who needs to
02:10:56
read that book right now what person anyone that wants to look at their uh to figure out to to become more aware of
02:11:05
their character traits and see what part of your uh being basically your state of
02:11:11
being needs to be changed um and um I think that yeah he does a really good a good job of helping you understand how
02:11:20
we think and feel and then how to break those character traits down because you know as research
02:11:25
suggested about 35 I think our character traits are pretty set but there is room
02:11:30
for improvement if you want to put in the hard work I mean Arnold S Syer didn't get to be the you know whatever
02:11:35
eight time Olympia CH as I don't know whatever champion and grow big muscles
02:11:40
by sitting on the couch you got to do the work the Deep work and um so again all the information is presented to you
02:11:46
it's just whether or not you want to you want to um dial into it I've read
02:11:50
there's three books that I've that have been pretty beneficial for me it's into
02:11:53
the magic shop by Dr doy doy I think yeah um Jonathan hate the happiness hypothesis and um breaking the being
02:12:02
yourself but buy my book you can read them after you there's four books now servman J yeah but those
02:12:10
but those have been pretty beneficial and they all sort of um cut across the same Concepts around breathing
02:12:16
visualization refocusing and um breaking down your character traits being a bit of human being yeah but as I was saying
02:12:23
when I was um giving you flowers at the beginning of the chat like you can read a book um but if you don't Implement any
02:12:28
of the strategies you learn you know if nothing changes nothing changes not at all and and it's and it's a lot you know
02:12:34
that's the thing if you want to get good in anything you got to do reps you know
02:12:36
what I mean like yourself you know I don't think you just got up one morning
02:12:39
and started running marathons you know what I mean you got to you got to train up for it it's it's like anything we're
02:12:44
human that's it yeah skill Fade's a real thing too by the way what is skill
02:12:48
Fade's a real thing you know you can't you just got to you just got to keep
02:12:52
doing it keep doing hard stuff hey this has been 2 and A4 hours um haven't even
02:12:57
talked about your rugby league job where you're working with RTS and Sean Johnson
02:13:02
Summer mening and the Dorth stuff which you're doing now which I can tell you're
02:13:05
really passionate about um but that's cool we we'll we'll wrap up now but I I
02:13:10
think the exciting thing is you had this long military career which went from your teens until your early 40s and um
02:13:17
then the rugby league thing for a couple of years and the door thing and I I I suspect you're just going to keep on
02:13:22
Reinventing reincarnating with the skills that you've got yeah I think that's probably the biggest takeaway
02:13:27
from um moving away from 20 years in the military in the high performing environment like that is um you know um
02:13:36
reidentifying who I am has become uh normal now whereas it was quite difficult at the start but I've kind of
02:13:43
reent re um identified myself two times now not only as a consultant but also you know now working in schools and um
02:13:53
yeah I mean I'm night and day away from you know who I was you know um you know a
02:14:01
decade ago um still got stuff to work on but yeah it's it can be done if I can do
02:14:06
it you know most people can do it but again you got to put in the work you know and you've got to um just really
02:14:11
look at yourself and seeing what's holding you back I just saw your hands are you a nail biter I am is that a
02:14:16
stress thing what is that anxiety thing younger yeah younger it's all of it it's
02:14:21
Autumn stress yeah it's it's weird I just I do it subconsciously yeah yeah
02:14:26
yeah um I need to get some fake ones maybe you know stick on AC yeah maybe that'll hey maybe that'll get me to do
02:14:34
it oh my God that' be amazing next next time you you catch up with Willie AATA
02:14:38
you get some stick on nails real long ones um just a couple of quick points to finish with what do you what do you miss
02:14:43
and not miss about the e um I've definitely missed the Brotherhood um and I guess I don't miss
02:14:52
the um the amount of time away basically that you have it used to be really awesome at the start and you you know
02:15:00
you get to see some Far flung um areas of the earth and um you know getting down in the dirt with um people and
02:15:06
stuff like that but uh yeah that that I yeah I don't don't miss that are you
02:15:11
proud of yourself yeah yeah yeah I'm I'm I again I do it all again I have uh no
02:15:18
regrets um yeah it's an amazing adventure if you really want to test yourself then by all means front up to
02:15:25
selection and see how you go if you're that type of person physically emotionally spiritually mentally you
02:15:30
will be tested um and the you know the stuff that you're doing there cannot be
02:15:36
replicated anywhere else and 2011 Jamie this guy in the picture what would he make of the guy sitting in the blue
02:15:43
velvet CH here now uh what are you doing yeah what are you doing [ __ ] you're
02:15:48
talking lot mate yeah yeah shut sitting there be like you know you shouldn't be
02:15:53
talking about this stuff yeah yeah um be pretty yeah I think he would be I think
02:15:58
he'd be pretty surprised uh what I'm doing at the moment he'd be thinking how
02:16:02
did you get there you know cuz it's literally not a day I mean at the end of
02:16:06
the day I was a very staunch um SAS senior NCO um guardian of the culture and uh those that know me know um but um
02:16:16
yeah I'm sure there'd be a look of shock on his face sitting across here that's
02:16:20
that's exciting thing about life you never know um you know with each year or
02:16:24
each chapter what's going to happen it's cool it's the roll with it all right
02:16:28
serviceman Jay um yeah 2 hours 17 minutes today um and we're just scratching the surface of a life and a
02:16:34
career well L hey thank you so much for your time today mate I appreciate the opportunity it's amazing it was great
02:16:39
discussion yeah awesome yeah